


5 Times Shawn Hunter Denied He’s A Parent (and one time he can’t.)

by starbucks22



Series: Take On New York [3]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23165233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbucks22/pseuds/starbucks22
Summary: Shawn Hunter does not have a child or a love life like other people his age. What he does have is his two life long best friends, their daughter, and the job that he loves.He is NOT a father, nor is he even father material. He insists it, even. It’s just easier this way.Too bad one Maya Hart refuses to listen to that.
Relationships: Isaiah "Zay" Babineaux & Lucas Friar & Maya Hart & Riley Matthews & Farkle Minkus & Isadora Smackle, Jonathan Turner and Maya Hart, Jonathan Turner and Shawn Hunter, Maya Hart and Shawn Hunter, Shawn Hunter and Cory Matthews and Topanga Lawrence-Matthews, Topanga Lawrence-Matthews/Cory Matthews
Series: Take On New York [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1636366
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44





	5 Times Shawn Hunter Denied He’s A Parent (and one time he can’t.)

**Author's Note:**

> howdy hey junior rangers 
> 
> I wanna clarify on a few characters here, about my writing of them or lack thereof:
> 
> 1\. Angela. As you can CLEARLY tell here, a few of the characters aren’t very fond of her. I, personally, really liked her in Boy Meets World. What I don’t like is how her and Shawn never got any proper closure due to the whole leaving for Europe thing, or at least they didn’t until early season 2 of Girl Meets World, I believe? Even then, she was only there for a few minutes of one episode. I’m now starting to realize that she REALLY doesn’t come across as a good guy here, and I truthfully wasn’t trying to villainize her or anything about actual events that happened in BMW, (Again, Europe,) and I have no IDEA where the whole “I got tricked into shooting for her wedding” thing even came from but chile anyways.
> 
> 2\. Katy. I had some issues with her not really showing up to any of Maya’s events, and I appreciate how she squared up and tried her best to be there more often after being called out TWO DIFFERENT TIMES (Riley you are a sweet bean. Shawn wyd) but all in all I just didn’t really like her?? And I don’t really get why? Like the further the show went the better she became and all but I just am not a fan.
> 
> 3\. JONATHAN TURNER SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN MORE GMW EPISODES. Girl meets the new teacher is probably my favorite GMW episode, honestly. I’ve seen it around six times now. 
> 
> 4\. Smackle and Zay are rarely in this due to the fact that I don’t know how to write them and I’m just not a fan of Smackle overall. If my writing of Smackle is decent, or even if it’s not, please let me know what to change with her in case I want to include her more in the future. 
> 
> 5\. WHERE IS RACHEL, FRANKIE, JOEY, OR JASON IN THIS SHOW? LITERALLY EVERYBODY ELSE BUT THEM SEEMS TO GET AT LEAST ONE APPEARANCE?? GMW WYD??? 
> 
> 6\. I don’t know when Maya’s birthday is and I won’t even try to cover it up. I know that she’s probably a few months older than Riley, but I don’t know how many. So, in this, just assume that her birthday is anywhere in between March-June. Even if that’s wildly inaccurate, it’s not like this series is exactly canon compliant anyway.

“This is going to become a major problem.”

It’s the day before Christmas. A majority of the Matthews family are going to get all gathered up together someplace in New York this year, which has happened a grand total of zero times, so it’s kind of crucial that this all goes well. Cory is visibly nervous about the whole event. So is Topanga. Actually, she’s probably more anxious about it than her husband is. After all, she’s the one that will be doing a majority of the cooking, if she actually wins the battle of the wills against Amy. (She’s not really expecting to, but that’s besides the point.) However, none of that is actually what Shawn is referring to. What he’s thinking aboutis this- it’s been two weeks since anyone’s seen Maya’s mother, who had run off for yet another “pilot season.” It wasn’t just him who thought it odd that she was up and leaving for all the best parts in December, when most everybody is busy spending time with their family members and shopping for the holidays. (You know, like she should be doing.) All she left behind was some money, (quite a bit more than she usually scrapes together, actually, and that’s probably what tipped both himself and Maya off that something weird is going on here, even if the younger of the two doesn’t know exactly what,) a few personal items that would hopefully ensure her return, and all of the information the adults in Maya’s life needed to contact her. 

All of those things on their own certainly don’t mean anything good, but all of those things put together only promise very bad things to come. Shawn, of all people, would know. 

And so, right before Christmas, Shawn decides to unleash his wise, if not somewhat desperate, warning.

“What are you talking about?” Cory, who has his eyes focused on the wide open road, asks. The two men and Topanga are all banding together to go cause some chaos and just generally wreck some havoc, just like the good ol’ days. 

Okay, so  technically,  their only true mission is to go out and buy some last minute gifts and stocking stuffers, but they’ve done worse with less time and a heck of a lot less money. 

Anyway.

Cory side eyes Shawn as he repeats his question. “What are you talking about?”

Shawn somehow resists the urge to roll his eyes. Hasn’t the other man been paying any attention at all? Isn’t it incredibly obvious if one just sits down, pays attention, and  looks?  “Maya’s mother.”

“Oh, don’t be a Grinch,” comes the automatic reply, and it’s said so quickly that Shawn is sure that his best friend wasn’t even truly listening in the first place. Cory rocks his head back and forth hard enough that the bell sitting on top of the Santa hat he had bought at a nearby discount store last week, jingles. Topanga smiles at her husband’s antics. Shawn rolls his eyes at his friends, but lets a small smile poke through.

This is so normal, so fundamentally  them,  that it feels like they’re all teenagers again, just casually screwing around and sneaking about, almost  always  getting into some form of trouble by the end of it all. Thing is, they’ve just never regretted it. They likely never will,not after all this time. But, of course, because they’re adults and two of them have children, life can’t stay all goofy and lighthearted and  easy  for very long.

After five minutes or so of head banging to one of their favorite songs goes by, Shawn tries once again to broach the topic. The second time goes a bit better than the first time did, but it’s not exactly like he hit a home run or something just as equally successful. 

“We need to talk about Maya’s mother.”

“What about her?” Cory sighs. His bright red Santa hat seems to swoop downward at the same time as his shoulders do. 

“I think we need to talk about what you’re going to do if she just... doesn’t come back. You need a plan B here, a second option in case things go sideways.”

“She’s going to come back. We’ve been in constant contact with her. She’s coming back. Nothing bad is going to happen.” Cory says this so confidently that Shawn kind of wants to punch him in the face. 

He sighs, shakes his head. This is all wrong. Since when was  Cory Matthews,  the one with the picture perfect Hallmark family, the poster boy for teenage abandonment? Never,  that’s when. He doesn’t have a foot to stand on here, and both himself and Shawn know it. The latter of the two sighs heavily as he runs a hand through his sweeping brown hair. “What makes you the most knowledgeable right now? Seriously, how would you know?”

“I don’t,” he admits. “But all signs point to ‘yes.’”

Shawn blinks. Is this really the time for corny jokes? “...Did you just quote a Magic 8 Ball?”

“Huh.” Cory blinks, too. He didn’t seem to realize what he had said until he was (mildly) called out over it. He shrugs. “I guess I did.”

“Anyway, just how ‘constant,’ is this constant conversation that you’re bragging about over there? You should probably just tell me the truth. I always know when you lie.”

Before Cory can, predictably, stumble his way through an unconvincing white lie, Topanga cuts him off. (That’s probably for the best.)

“We’ve been in touch with Katy at least once or twice a week. Why do you ask?”

Shawn sighs. That sounds about right. “Okay. How often did you talk to her, say, a few days after she left for LA?”  If that’s even where she really is,  he thinks but doesn’t say. 

“Actually, we talked to her quite a bit. She was constantly calling and checking up on Maya, every single day. After a while, though, she didn’t do that quite so much. She mentioned something about her ‘being safe with us,’ and ‘doing what she can’t,’ or something like tha-“ because of her cutting herself off like that, the other two are able to pinpoint just when realization slams into her like a runaway fright train. “...Oh.”

“Oh?” questions Cory, who is tired and hungry and not quite catching onto their drift as quickly as he might while he’s at his peak. 

The other two, though, are still talking. They don’t actually hear him, nor do they even notice his lingering confusion. If they do, they make absolutely no indication of it.

Shawn shoots an unimpressed stare at a now frowning Topanga. In a ‘duh’ sort of voice, he says, “Yeah,  oh.”

“Maybe that’s not going to happen this time!” She seems desperate, though. Not at all believable. She isn’t even convincing herself, which is really saying something. 

“Do you really want to go ahead and bet on that? Are you that sure everything won’t go down in flames?” Shawn stares at her with an totally done look that’s usually reserved for thenow rare times when he’s not getting along with one Cory Matthews. 

Topanga hesitates. “Well-“

“No, you don’t. Nobody with half a brain would.”

“Look, maybe this whole... thing isn’t so serious as you’re saying,” she says hopefully, despite the fact that she knows fully well that he’s probably the only one with even the slightest bit of experience in this issue. Therefore, they should all probably just shut up and heed his warnings.

However, they’re all stubborn, so that’s not a thing that’s just going to happen. 

Shawn shakes his head. “The phone calls. You said you’ve been getting them once, twice a week, but you used to get them all the time. That’s bad enough on its own, but here’s the thing.” Shawn leans forward, leans in real close, as if that gives him some sort of intimidation factor. Really, he just wants to be taken seriously, for crying out loud. Why doesn’t anybody want to do that? It’s not like it’s hard! “I’m not stupid, and you two can’t keep things hidden from me to save your own lives. I know this, because you dumbasses have  tried.”

“What are you getting at with this?”

“I know how this whole horse and pony show works. I know that there’s more to the story, so what else is there? What else has happened, ‘Panga?” he asks as he crosses his arms tightly across his chest. He’s dangerously close to outright glaring at her, which is something that he hasn’t done in a long time. He means business, now. 

“Well.” Topanga hesitates. “She’s been kind of like a disappearing act, truthfully. We’ll be lucky to see her or even hear from her twice a week, now. Maya might talk to her more than we do, but I don’t really think so... but she always comes back! Katy does, I mean.”

“Yeah. She always comes back, until the one day she decides that she doesn’t.” The words come out sounding more bitter than he meant them to. Cory frowns at him, obviously concerned. Shawn catches Topanga, who he’s almost arguing with, doing the same.

“What’s going on here, Shawnie?” Cory’s picked up on the general vibe of the car now. His voice is less lighthearted, more worried. Their fun, relaxing car ride has turned into what sounds like a serious custody discussion. It feels as though they’re all going through what appears to be a three-way divorce, or something of the sort, with the frank (but on the brink of emotional.) way that they’re all discussing this. 

“Look, just listen to me. I’m serious.” Sure enough, Shawn’s voice matches his cold statement. His face is dead set, steady as stone. He’s determined to finish what he’s started now. “Cory, are you listening to me?”

He doesn’t wait to get a yes or a no or any response at all, really, before he launches straight into his main point. 

“Maya’s mom is going to leave her, and she’s probably not coming back.” He says it coldly, in no uncertain terms. He sounds completely sure of this. He doesn’t have a doubt in his mind that this woman he’s talking about is going to flake out for real. “And you need a plan for when that happens, like I tried to tell you earlier. The last thing you need right now is to get blindsided.”

“What do you mean ‘us?’ You’re a part of this now too, you know,” Cory tries to remind him. It doesn’t go all that well. 

Shawn shakes his head. Denial. Hard, cold, bitter denial. He probably wants to not get involved in any of this, but it’s too little, too late. “Uh, no. No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” Topanga is staring at him. “How exactly are you  not  involved? You’re the one warning us about Katy in the first place. Technically, you started this whole talk.”

“And that’s the most that I’m going to be doing, so you should get used to it.”

She frowns. “I thought you liked Maya.” As if that’s the biggest issue here. 

“I do!” Shawn wholeheartedly agrees, no longer sounding totally dead, even if it’s just for a second or two. It’s an improvement, that’s for sure. Nobody’s complaining about it. “I just...” he trails off, not quite sure how to word the feelings he has. He’s beginning to wish that he had brought a pad of paper with him earlier in the day to make things just a little bit easier. When he can’t verbalize his thoughts and emotions, he switches back to his default- writing. He’s been doing it (and taking pictures) for so long now that it’s practically his default. He’s always been better with the written word, anyway. 

Fortunately, Cory, who’s usually about as observant as a rock, picks up on that brief bit of hesitation impressively fast. For all that he usually doesn’t pay all that much attention to the things around him, it’s always different when it comes to his lifelong best friend. So, he speaks. He confuses (and kind of startles) the other two, definitely, but he speaks. And it works. 

“You’re scared that you’re right, and you’re scared for Maya. You’re afraid that getting involved too much will make you have to relive it all a second time through Maya. You would never wish anything bad- like abandonment, maybe- on her, ever. You want to protect her.”

He says it in a tone so matter of fact, as if that’s just an undeniable fact, that Shawn and Topanga are totally at a loss, gawking at their best friend like he’s been replaced by a pod person.

“How did you do that?” Topanga loudly asks. She’s still staring, but this time it’s at Shawn. For a few seconds or so, he doesn’t quite catch on to just  why  she’s looking at him so expectantly. He’s unsure on why she’s very blatantly waiting for a reaction- or an  over reaction, to be more accurate. 

When Shawn snaps out of it a few seconds too late, the very first thing he does is try to deny the incredibly correct accusation. “What? No! No no no. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t believe you,” says Cory. If he’s just a tad bit too smug, nobody points that out. 

“Well, you better believe me, because I’m telling the truth!”

“So, who’s telling all of this to Maya?” Topanga butts in as loudly and as quickly as she can, despite the fact that she knows her question can wait. But, also, she  knows  that the two grown men are going to want to go wrestling on the floor if this continues for long enough. They’re all in a  car.  She’d rather not watch that go down. Also, she’d prefer not to crash. (Also, she’d really like it if someone would answer her genuine answer instead of throwing down like they’re all on a professional looking wrestling mat.)

At her voice, and at her unexpected speaking up, the two stop squabbling, at least for now. She can visibly see the second that they wise up and get serious again. “Who’s going to go and confront Katy about it?” she continues her mini investigation. “Do we need to get Maya’s dad involved- actually, that’s a bad idea. Scratch that. Are we going to drop her off at home sometime before her school break ends, or do we just keep her with us the whole time? I need your guys’ opinions.”

Instead of answering her questions, which are somewhat just her thinking out loud anyway, Cory replies with some of his own instead. “Do we need to be prepared to fight Maya’s parents for custody if this all takes a turn for the worst? We can’t just adopt her as is, can we? Is that even legal?”

“Katy has to give up custody. We also need to know what Maya’s going to need emotionally if Katy actually does leave- which she still might not actually do! And are we going to need lawyers-“ at that, she pauses. Her husband remains silent as he pulls the car into their target destination’s parking lot. Shawn stares at the woman, dumbfounded.

“Topanga...” he drawls out her name slowly, incredulously. Of course they’re going to need a lawyer! But here’s the thing with that- “... You’re a lawyer.”

She frowns and deflates. As she blinks, the look on her face very much makes the other two believe that she just now remembers that fact, instead of knowing this all along as she should, even before she got on a long, panicked rant over a child that is not actually, officially any of theirs. (In all the ways that matter, though, she might as well be. They just don’t share the same blood. Or have custody, but they’re going to be working on that one.)

“Oh, right! Yes. Yes I am. Okay!” Topanga claps her hands together, her panicking momentarily over, and attempts to get a handle on the situation at hand. Her fretting might be dialed down some, but her denial and her disbelief that someone will indeed leave the kid that they halfway already abandoned... isn’t. So naturally, the first thing she says is, “Shawn! I think you might be wrong.”

Cory parks the car and side eyes the woman he can spot through his peripheral vision. When the car stops moving, he turns to give her a properly unimpressed look. “Wow. What a conversation starter. This totally a good idea that won’t end up with the two of you trying to commit murder.”

She ignores him as she whips her head around to face their friend. Instead of convincing the other two pay more attention and wanting to join her side, the movement just comes across as dramatic and a bit unnecessary. Y’know, because they’re all still sitting right next to one another.

“Okay,” says Shawn, in a voice that heavily implies how much he doubts that the blonde’s statement is true. “Why don’t you tell me just why you think I’m wrong? And, wait.” He frowns. He’s only been paying some rather halfhearted attention to the woman after the whole conversation launched into madness, so he’s admittedly not even all that sure what she’s on about anymore. He’s not certain if he wants to know. “What, exactly, am I wrong about? I haven’t even said anything.”

That was almost true. He has said something within the last twenty to thirty minutes, but he’s only opened his mouth since then to remind Topanga, who was yelling about getting a lawyer, that she is, in fact, a lawyer. 

“Wrong again!” she sighs like this is a great and terrible burden. “And yes, you did! Earlier. Toward the beginning of this whole thing.” She motions in between the three. Nobody’s sure if by, ‘this whole thing’ she means the car ride or the long colloquy that they’ve currently got going on. 

“You mean, when I first brought up Katy?”

She points at him, nodding her assent to what he has just said. “That’s right.”

“Oh.” He gets it now. And, he’s not going to lie, but he’s mad about it. He never likes to get serious with anyone- avoids it like one would avoid a disastrous plague- and the one time he resolves to be earnest about something, he gets brushed off and told that everything he thinks is wrong. “Are you kidding me right now?”

She blinks at him, looking as innocent as she can. He’s not exactly fooled. “What?” Topanga asks.

“You really think I’m wrong about this? You really think that this is the time to act like you know more than me?”

At that, the blonde seems to falter. “I never said that I did, exactly...”

“Well, you sure implied it.”

“I never said that,” she repeats, a bit firmer this time. The two watch as Cory exits the car, takes one look back at them, and stalks off toward the blue and white Walmart in front of them without a single word. Neither of them makes any move to follow him. Although, it probably isn’t a good idea for them to do do... maybe they should have. That would have delayed the unexpected argument that they’ve begun. So, they continue on anyway, knowing how done their best friend is slowly becoming with them. “Look, it’s not that I know more than you, exactly, it’s just that I’m a lawyer, as you’ve so  kindly  pointed out, and I’ve dealt with cases like this before. I deal with these things almost every day.”

“It’s a bit different when feelings are involved, and I know that yours most certainly are. You love that little girl, Topanga,” Glaring, he finishes with, “And don’t you try and convince me that you don’t.”

“I can handle this,” she says, but doesn’t try to deny the accusation. 

“This isn’t just one of your normal cases, though!”

“I  know  that,” she snaps out bitterly. “Don’t think I figured that one out already?”

“And it won’t help things to encourage your and Cory’s denial on this,” he goes on as if she hadn’t said anything at all, “If you two just sit here and jingle your little Santa bells and sing along about reindeers while pretend like nothing even matters, like this is no big deal, then everything is going to get at least two times worse.  At least.  Trust me on this,” he frowns, but whether the frown is aimed at her or not, she’ll never know, “I know what I’m talking about here.”

What she says next is so off topic that Shawn can only blink at her as the non-sequitur rolls off of her tongue. 

“So, you’re a part of this now, aren’t you?”

He frowns. That... was random. And a bit confusing. What was that even supposed to mean? “What?”

He doesn’t get a direct answer. Instead, he gets a calm sounding statement. “Earlier, you said that you aren’t a part of this.”

He looks away. “I’m not.” 

(Maybe he would come across as more believable if he’d actually look her in the eye while he’s lying to her. Or maybe if she didn’t know him so well, it might have worked. (Keyword, though:  might.)

“You care about Maya just as much as Cory and I do, don’t you?”

“I never said that.” He neither confirms nor does he deny. She picks up on that instantly, because she’s Topanga Lawrence-Matthews and she’s just always been Like That. 

“You do,” she triumphantly crows. It only lasts a second or so before she settles down. “You do. You’re going to be a big part of this now, whatever... this even is. You know that, right?”

“No, I’m not,” he once again tries to deny it. He’s no more convincing the second time than he was the first time around, and he knows it. 

“So, you’re not going to be upset if Cory and I just go forward with this our own way, right?”

He agrees unthinkingly. “Of course I won’t be upset. Why would I be?”

“Great.” She pauses. “So, what would you say if we just... make up excuses for Maya to stay with us a little while longer?”

“Why would you need an excuse?”

“So we don’t have to tell her your suspicions about Katy, or at least not right away.”

“Is that the best idea?”

“Of course it is.” She doesn’t explain her reasoning, or at least she doesn’t right away. She just says “Of course it is,” as if there is absolutely no reason to doubt anything that she is saying. Positively none at all.

“You’re going to drag this out?”

“Not exactly-“

“You can’t keep something like this from her. She’s going to find out eventually, no matter what. You have to know that... right?

“I know. But-“

“There’s no ‘but’ here, Topanga!” By the time his tremblingly spoken words wrap around the blonde’s name, Shawn’s voice is shaking. “Topanga,” he repeats her name, calmer this time as he tries to get himself together and refrain from shouting at her some more, despite the fact that he  really  wants to- logically, he knows that she’s pretty undeserving of his ire, but emotionally, it doesn’t compute. He has so many reasons to be angry, and only some of them actually factor in to the current equation, such as this: Topanga doesn’t know what she’s doing, she doesn’t know what to say or how to go forward from here on out, and she wants to just not leave Maya in the dark about the fact that all of the responsible adults in her life have suspicions about her mother potentially leaving her in the near future. That is something she absolutely can  not  and should not be blindsided on. It’ll just make things all that much worse, he knows. She needs someone to just give it to her straight.

What she truly needs right now is for someone to sit her down and give her all the comfort that she’s going to need, and that person needs to be prepared to back off while being able to accept the fact that, knowing Maya, she’s likely to lash out at whoever’s nearest to her. (And, without a doubt, she’s going to want to metaphorically shoot the messenger.)

That could be him, he realizes. 

Technically, he still has a way out of this whole mess. He can just nope out right now, say sayonara, and walk into the nearby Walmart without a care in the world. Sure, he’s the one that technically started this whole argument and upcoming intervention, but that’s as far as he really wants to take it. He didn’t even want to say that much, but the poor kid deserves it.

He’s starting to realize that no matter how much he yells and shuts down and denies his involvement in anything important regarding Maya’s life- she’s still so  young,  the news he has to say could  crush  her, and he doesn’t want to be the bearer of bad news- he’s involved already now, whether he likes it or not.

“Okay, what’s taking you guys so long?” Before Shawn can actually take the time and digest the thoughts he’s having, he hears a faint jingling of bells just seconds before Cory, who has apparently become fed up with waiting on him and Topanga, came walking back to the vehicle that the other two have still yet to abandon. When nobody answers, the man repeats his question. “What’s taking you guys so long?”

“We’re just talking,” Topanga says. She’s frowning and looking away from everyone. Unable to locate a proper place for her to level her gaze on, she pinpoints her husband’s ridiculously corny Christmas clothes. 

“It’s sure taking you a while. It’s been half an hour.”

“And you’re still waiting for us? Why didn’t you just go inside and get some things off of the list we brought?”

He shuffles one foot in front of the other, then repeats the movement. He looks at the hood of the car and not at either one of them, clearly avoiding eye contact. “...I may have bought some things.”

She raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “Did you buy any of the things that we actually came here for?”

He hesitates. “I may need to go buy some more things... do you have any money?”

Shawn and Topanga, agreeing for what is probably the first time that day, groan in unison. 

As the trio get back outside and head into the Walmart nearby them, with their previous conversation momentarily pushed aside, not much is different from when they first started arguing. It’s probably not the best thing in the world. 

The duo are still not in agreement on what to do next, and they’re a little bit tense as they run up and down the aisles, occasionally stopping to either grab something or stop Cory from grabbing something that they really don’t need, but they try their best to ignore it.

It’s not easy.

The whole time they shop, all Topanga and Shawn can think about is this-

What are we supposed to do? 

*****

Two.

“We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas...”

Maya rubs at her sore, tired eyes and resists the urge to glare up at her over enthusiastic best friend, whom has recently decided that singing Christmas music at five in the morning, (the Christmas music part, Maya understands, but yelling it when the sun isn’t even up, she does not,) is somehow a  good  idea.

“Riley,” she tries to say, but she’s not even sure if her friend’s name is even audible over the racket that the brunette and her little brother are making. She hears a loud crash from the kitchen as Topanga throws a pot across the room in frustration over not being able to create a dish just the way she wants it. (What a perfectionist, right?) She hears Cory, also in the kitchen, trying to reassure her and failing miserably. She also hears Shawn’s voice, but she can’t quite pinpoint what he’s saying. All she knows is that he sounds about two steps away from punching someone in the head. 

It’s probably not the best thing in the world that her immediate conclusion from these minuscule little bits of information is that he’s on the phone with her mother. When she trudges down the stairs and catches Topanga frowning at her cell phone, Maya decides that she’s correct. 

She’s about to interfere before she actually sees Topanga steal the phone from Shawn. When he starts quietly arguing with the blonde, Maya just decides to sit at the top of the short staircase and eavesdrop instead. 

So, she just listens as Topanga very clearly says Katy’s name. There’s no doubt about that, then. Something’s going on here.

What should she do? Should she go down there and demand to know what’s happening? Or should she just leave it alone and assume the best for once? Maybe something is going well in her life for once? Maybe something isn’t about to go so horribly upside down that she won’t be able to remember things being right side up again? Maybe Shawn and Topanga are talking to her mom about Christmas presents? 

She dismisses that lovely little thought almost as soon as she thinks about it in the first place. Clearly, none of that is what’s going on right now. People don’t usually look this depressed or this angry or this ready to stomp out over a measly little gift.

She doesn’t even get the chance to mentally file through her options on how to go forward from this point, because here comes Riley thumping down the steps as she makes her way into the kitchen, humming a different cutesy little song than the one she was yelling out earlier. It would probably be as endearing as it usually is if Maya had more coffee and wasn’t stressing the heck out....

And if Riley didn’t just accidentally give away Maya’s prime scheming and spying position. It’s not Riley’s fault. Logically, Maya knows that, but that doesn’t help tamper down the endless stream of  I’m going to be in so much trouble  that is racing through her brain. Now, on top of that, Shawn is staring at her. There’s no way out, now. She’s  so  caught. She visibly tenses, makes a face, and prepares herself for a long, obnoxious lecture about how she has to learn to respect other people’s privacy, especially in a house that she doesn’t even technically live in... 

Shawn hands her a hot, steaming mug full of her favorite coffee.

That’s not what I expected.

She blinks down at it, then up at him wearily, then down at the cup. He raises an eyebrow at her and takes a sip out of his own drink. Doesn’t say a word. 

Is she getting the silent treatment, or is he just waiting for her to speak first? She doesn’t know which one it is, but now that she’s locked in this accidental staring contest, she doesn’t really care. Now, she’s determined to  win. 

After ten or so minutes full of impassive gazes, bright reindeer decorated cups, a bubbly teenager in the background of all of this, and Topanga, even farther in the background, in full Lawyer Mode, (Maya kind of wanted to trademark that when she was younger. Sometimes, like when she sees the woman stalking around the tiny apartment, snapping into the phone like she’s a shark trying to find blood in the water, she still wants to go up to whoever trademarks things, point them in the woman’s direction, and go “Yes, her right there. She’s the physical embodiment of what a human shark would be,”) Maya is the first one to break.

“So,” she says. 

“So,” Shawn repeats. He pours some sugar into his coffee, then pulls out little packs full of some random spices or whatever it is. She honestly has no idea what’s in there, and it just confuses the heck out of her. That doesn’t really say much, though, because so far this has been a really confusing morning. Shawn, to his credit, doesn’t stop to question why the teenage girl that he hardly knows is glaring at various flavor packets. Instead, he tears another one open and pours it into his drink without a care in the world. It’s Christmas. He can care later. 

Maya, apparently, does not share that little philosophy.

“What’s that?” she eventually asks, slowly. She points at one of the empty, tiny packages. When he looks over at her, expression clear and innocent, that somehow only serves to make her more suspicious. “Why is it white?” 

“Because it isn’t brown,” he responds reluctantly. He’s honestly not sure what to say to that. Why is she questioning him on the colors of sugar and spice packs? Why is this suddenly something that needs to be dealt with? 

“But it’s white.” She frowns at him. “Like, not off white, either. Or eggshell. Or beige. It’s like, pure white,” she says as if that makes a distinguishable difference, as if pure white and slightly less blinding white is a thing of utmost importance. 

“Glad you know what colors are, kid. You sure don’t need me to help you figure that one out.” He just can’t help how his voice comes across as sarcastic and dull. It’s his default, really. He just hopes that Maya doesn’t get  too  offended by his snark, but he doesn’t think she will. The kid’s got a thick skin, and she usually speaks his language. 

Keyword: usually. 

Right now, she doesn’t make much sense to him at all. 

She points over at his drink. “Are you allowed to be drinking that?”

Shawn looks over at her. She’s rubbing at her eyes and blinking blearily at the floating white bits of sugar that he’s stirring around with a spoon. She looks pretty unaware, honestly. 

“Yes.” Now he’s just confused. Maybe she’s so tired that she can’t think straight? Why else would she be so suspicious of sugar?

...She knows that he’s drinking  sugar,  right?

“WE WISH YOU A MERRY-“ Riley, apparently fed up with being ignored in the background, positively  screams.  Maya tries to subtly cover her ears. Topanga shoves a pillow at her eldest child before walking away as if she hadn’t done anything at all. 

Yeah. Not thinking straight seems like a pretty plausible explanation right about now.

“Okay wait,” Maya says almost the very second that her best friend stops screeching. She leans forward, plucks Shawn’s cup out of his hands, and inspects it. She hands it back a few seconds later without a word of explanation. When the mug is safely back in the man’s hands, Maya looks and sounds less ready to thump it- or someone- into a wall. 

Thinking back to the phone call Shawn was just having a few minutes ago before Topanga took over, he finds that he can’t quite relate. 

The little blonde beside him pokes at him to catch his attention. “Was that really only sugar?” she asks. 

“What did you think it was?” He kind of wants to know, but he kind of feels that he’s just going to get some kind of half-baked response that’ll leave him wishing he never asked in the first place. The younger of the two opens her mouth, probably ready to bullshit her way out of a straight answer, when Topanga accidentally interrupts both of them from speaking their minds. 

“NO. That is  completely  unacceptable.” 

“What’s going on over there?” Maya, instead of going with the answer she had at the ready, decides to switch tactics at the last second instead. Directly asking what’s happening is more straightforward, and gets her out of replying the way that she doesn’t want to- honesty. Bleh. She doesn’t think her quick change of topics will help her out too much, though, especially if Shawn wants to be stubborn this morning.

Apparently, he does not. 

“Honestly... I’d tell you if I really knew what’s going on right now,” he tells her. His eyes are bright, wide, and wholeheartedly honest. He’s not lying to her here. He’s being really sincere, and she knows it. She just doesn’t know what to do about it. 

“Well, what  do  you know?” Bat away sincerity with questions and snark. Totally never, ever been done before. Totally remarkable. Maya raises an eyebrow as she motions over at the other blonde, who’s pacing around the apartment as loudly as she can dare without waking up Auggie and Cory. After all, it’s still not even six o’clock in the morning. “I mean, besides the fact that Mrs. Matthews over there is cursing up a storm in front of two thirteen-year-olds. She seems to be switching up on that particular moral all of a sudden. She wouldn’t even let me have a glass of  Diet Dr. Pepper  last week, for crying out loud.”

“I don’t even think she’s noticed that you’re awake.”

“I’m... right in front of her, though? How does she not see me?” Maya then proceeds to wave at the woman in question, who doesn’t even seem to notice. She only gets louder. Riley, on the other hand, is squinting at her mother with un-Riley like suspicion.

“What’s going on?” the brunette questions, sounding a bit uncertain. The other two simply shrug at her. They’re all in the same boat here- if that boat requires being under the age of forty and desperately wanting to know why the normally calm Topanga Lawrence-Matthews is going at Katy Hart like she wants to eat her for breakfast. 

“Good question,” Maya says. “All either of us know is that she’s on the phone with my mom.”

“Oh, yeah! Her.” She sounds surprised, as if she had forgotten about Katy’s entire existence. 

“Is  anybody  going to give me any answers here?” The thirteen-year-old’s words come across snappily. Nobody seems to mind.

“Politely, I feel the need to say to you, YOU NEED TO GET YOUR FREAKING PRIORITIES STRAIGHT.” Topanga hangs up the phone. 

Maya points at the device as it hits the ground. “So, I can see that you’re having some issues here.”

Topanga, even while talking to the girl she’s come to think of as a second daughter, doesn’t quite seem to register who she’s speaking with as she makes her way slowly into the kitchen. She fishes around for a tall, long glass, pulls it out of the cabinet, and frowns. “Yeah, that just might be a bit of an understatement.”

Maya stands up. “So, as I repeat for the one hundredth time today,  what is going on?”

The older blonde tries to shoot a ‘oh shit’ look with Shawn, but the man either doesn’t realize what she’s trying to do, or doesn’t care. He only looks back at her blankly before shrugging and sipping at his drink. She’s fully on her own here.

“Uh... Maya, sweetie-“

It’s the ‘sweetie’ that does it. It’s the ‘sweetie’ that seems to chip away at the blissfully obliviousness that she’s been sporting since she’s been awake this morning... but, realistically, she’s probably been feeling that since a few days after Winter Break hit. She just hasn’t admitted it to herself until now. 

Maya sighs. Her shoulders slump. “My mom isn’t coming home on time, is she?”

“Uh, no... she’s saying that she might be away for an extra couple of weeks. I don’t want you going back to your apartment until she’s back here, so why don’t you just stay with us until then?”

Maya is silent as she pushes her cup out away from her. Without being asked, Shawn picks it up and heads into the kitchen to refill it. 

When he comes back into the living room, Topanga is gone, presumably off into the boy’s bedrooms, attempting to wake up Cory and Auggie. It’s kind of a miracle that Riley didn’t accidentally on purpose wake them all up earlier while she was acting out something out of America’s Got Talent. Speaking of-

“This sucks,” Riley says sympathetically. “I’m sorry about all of this, Peaches.”

The short blonde shrugs, as if this isn’t even a blimp on her radar. “Eh, that’s just life.”

The brunette blinks, seemingly startled by the blasé response. “That’s a horrible outlook to have.”

She shrugs again, this time out of spite and an attempt to annoy her best friend out of discussing feelings. For a little while, that straight up fails. 

The only reason that her BFF doesn’t sit her down on the sofa and play therapist at just past six o’clock on Christmas morning is because of said BFF’s ‘uncle’ deciding to bestow some mercy upon her. 

“So,” says Shawn as he hands Maya her mug back. “I can’t tell if this is a terrible time to give you your Christmas present or if it’s the perfect one.” When he only gets a blank, almost confused look in return, he sighs and extends his very brief statement out a bit further. “I need you to throw me a bone here, kid. I can’t read your mind. So, now or later?”

“You got me a Christmas present?” She sounds so surprised that the man silently vows to try and give her one every single year without fail, especially if it’ll bring her the cautious smile that she’s wearing now.

“Of course I did,” he says as if it’s obvious, as if it’s an undeniable fact of life. Maybe to him, it is. Why wouldn’t he get her one? He says that, too. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“It’s just- we aren’t... close.” Her words come out all hesitant sounding and small. One hand grips the side of her shirt while the other squeezes the poor reindeer’s handle tighter. The mug in her hand creaks slightly at the added pressure, but it isn’t in any danger of shattering, so she really isn’t concerned about it.

Shawn shrugs. He doesn’t care how close they are or how often they talk. What he  does  care about, though, is Maya. And he’s determined to make that known, if it wasn’t already “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

He walks out the door. True to his word, though, he’s back inside the Matthews’ apartment building within minutes. When he re-arrives, he’s carrying a heavily decorated, medium sized box. It has a red, sparkly bow on the upper right corner, and the name tag that’s been lazily slapped beside the bright decoration bears the Maya’s name in a sprawled out, slanted cursive font. 

He holds it out away from him, and off to her. “Here. For you.” 

Gingerly, she takes it. Then, much less hesitantly, she shakes it. She’s not satisfied with the results of this, so she shakes it again and holds it up to her ear as if that will change the outcome any. “What is it?”

Shawn smiles at her. When he sits down beside her, he shoots her an amused look. “You can just open it, you know.”

“I know that,” she claims. The momentarily defensive tone in her voice leads him to believe that she did not, in fact, know that. Now that she’s certain she’s been given permission to destroy the thing, she rips the wrapping paper to shreds. Red strips of plastic and paper and cardboard go flying around the room, causing the small area surrounding the two to become a mess. 

They don’t mind, and they can just clean it up later. It’s one thousand percent worth it. 

When the rest of the group comes out of their rooms ten or so minutes later, successfully dragged awake by an irritated Topanga, the first thing that any of them see is a grinning Maya holding onto a gift in one hand and Shawn’s arm with the other. The girl has yet to even notice the other’s presences, she’s so distracted. 

She’s beaming.

“Well would you look at that,” Cory says lowly. He wraps one arm around his loving life and just watches the scene in front of him. He just can’t stop smiling. 

He’s positively proud.

*****

Three.

“SHAWNIE! IT’S WAKE UP TIME NOW! GET UP!”

Shawn would rather not, thank you very much. He doesn’t even know why Cory is shaking him at who-knows-what-time-it-is o’clock, and he’s not sure if he even wants to know. 

Actually, scratch that. He doesn’t even care. All he wants to do is get the sleep that he deserves. 

Determined to ignore Cory as he is, he only pries his eyes open when a pillow comes flying at his face. He throws the item back, not particularly caring if it actually hits his friend or not. Judging by the quiet huff he hears as a pillow softly lands somewhere nearby, it probably did.

Shawn sits up, rubbing at his eyes. “What do you want from me this time? And why can’t it wait for like, two more hours?”

“‘This time,’ replies Cory, scoffing. It’s not an answer. “Okay fine,” he says just seconds later, after he gets flared into submission. A tired Shawn is not a Shawn to demand things from, and not a guy to try and ignore. “I need to ask you for a favor.”

“Figures.” That’s about what he was expecting. Why else would he be woken up at only... what time is it? He sits up a bit more so he can get a better view of the little analog clock that’s sitting on his bedside table. It’s only in the morning. “What do you need?”

“It’s about Maya,” Cory says as if it’s a selling point. (It kind of is, but Shawn doesn’t want to go and give him the satisfaction of being right about that.) 

So, he repeats, this time more impatiently: “What do you need?”

“Well, it’s Career Day today at school, as you already know.” Oh boy, doesn’t he. Riley’s been even more bubbly than usual and Maya has been grumpier than usual for quite a while now. For some reason, within these last few weeks, the latter girl has been clinging to him more and more as this particular day approaches. Metaphorically, most times, but sometimes physically as well. Everyone needs a hug sometimes. 

Shawn reads in between the lines and quickly discovers what Cory is hesitant to say. “Katy isn’t coming, is she?” 

“No.”

“Didn’t think so,” the man sighs. He kicks his feet off the bed and grabs at his shoes, slowly accepting that his bedtime is just about over now. “Alright, lemme guess. You want to me to show up for Maya because her mother won’t?”

Cory makes pleasing hands and tilts his head to the left. He kind of resembles a golden retriever. This is probably where Riley gets it from. “Could ya please? It’ll mean a lot to her. And to me.”

Shawn, admittedly, is about to break down and say yes without any further questions asked, until he remembers a certain fact that both teenage girls have been ranting and/or gushing about for weeks. (It’s not very hard to guess which one was doing what.) “Wait. Isn’t Career Day a thing that parents and guardians are supposed to show up for?”

“...Yes...” Cory seems even more hesitant now that his best friend is picking up what he’s been trying to not lay down. The implication of it all is heavy and hard to ignore. 

Shawn stares. “And you’re asking me anyway?”

“Yes, but-“

“I’m not her father, Cory!”

He doesn’t seem to really agree with that statement, judging by the way he scoffs. “Oh, come on! You’re the closest thing that she’s got to one, and you know it!”

“She’s got you!” exclaims Shawn, motioning wildly at the other man. They’re both wide awake now. “There’s no way that you’re not like a father to her by now. She’s been coming here every day for years, and there’s no way that you two haven’t formed some sort of bond by this point. You can try and convince me otherwise all you want, but I won’t believe it.”

“No way. Pick something else. I’m not a father.”

(Cory has two kids. It takes Shawn a great deal of effort to not pick out just how  obvious  that is and how much denying that is actually  reducing  the effectiveness of that particular argument.)

“I still think you’re like a father to her, but if you refuse to admit it, then you can just be like an eccentric uncle to her or something. I don’t really care... But you’re purposely avoiding my point. I think you’re afraid to accept that you’re wrong.”

“And  you’re  avoiding  my-“

Shawn turns around and grabs the pillow that had been laying underneath his head just a few minutes ago. He’s going to swing. He’s going to slap his best friend right upside the head with it, he’s so close-

Anticlimactically, Topanga walks up and snatches it right out of his hands. “No,” is all she says. She tosses it away from them all. “What’s going on in here? You two bozos are going to wake up Auggie if you get any louder.”

“He called me an eccentric uncle.” Cory, pointing accusingly toward a wall of all things, is the first to speak.

She looks at Shawn, but her face is more amused than anything else. This is just a normal Tuesday to her. “Oh? Is this true?”

“Yep.” No denial there.

“Okay. Why?”

“Because he refuses the very accurate claim I made. I said that he’s like a father figure to Maya, and he won’t believe me no matter what.”

Topanga, unfortunately, decides to take her husband’s side of things. Figures. “That sounds about right. How did this all start, anyway?” Before either of them can say anything to her, especially before they can start arguing again, she simply nods sagely, as if she just mentally answered her own question. “Ah. This is about the whole Career Day thing, isn’t it?”

“It’s so stupid,” Shawn, who admittedly has really shitty luck with these sorts of events- family packed, full of love filled people that are filled to the brim with pride over their chosen profession. He’s never had a great experience with any of it- or, at least, he hadn’t until Jonathan came along. But even then, by the time they were really getting along for more than five seconds at a time, and nobody was crashing motorcycles or joining cults, high school was near its end and, by default, so were the Career Days. “It’s ridiculous. She has you and Cory in the first place, so why should I even go to the stupid thing? Besides, what would I even say? ‘Hi, my name is Shawn Hunter, and I’m a photojournalist?’”

*****

“Hi. My name is Shawn Hunter, and I’m a photojournalist.”

He gets roped into Career Day, because of course he does. He should of known from the first place that he would end up involved somehow. Doesn’t he always, now a days? Has he  ever  stayed out of the way when there’s some wacky event involving Cory?

Maya glares at him the second he opens his mouth to speak.  What a warm welcome, an I right?  Her friends, to be fair, just look confused, including Riley. Which, come on now. She knows better than to be surprised by any of the insanity in her families’ lives by now. (Plus, there’s no way that Cory didn’t inform Riley that Shawn was on his way. There’s just no way.)

“Hi!” a kid near Maya pipes up, shaking his hand in the air wildly back and forth. How does he already have questions? Cautiously, Shawn points over at the kid. He’s short, sitting tall and proud in his chair. He has neutral looking hair and he’s wearing a bright, colorful turtleneck.

Ahhh. This kid is related to Minkus somehow. 

His hypothesis is proven correct when he snaps back to attention somewhat and notices that Minkus himself is standing beside his... son? Maybe? Before he can open his mouth and snark at him like old times, (the urge to do so is very strong,) the professionally dressed man is already addressing him.

“What are you doing here?” 

“I’m here to support Maya,” Shawn admits. 

Minkus squints at Maya for a second or two before returning his gaze back to Shawn. He gives the other man a quick up and down. If acting like nothing has changed and neither has their banter is the way he wants to play this, then Shawn will gleefully indulge. Except- “Who is she to you?” 

Apparently he can’t just get what he wants. He can’t just sass people like old times. That would be much too simple, now wouldn’t it? 

At the unexpected question, he falters. What  is  she to him? What  are  they? What are himself and Maya, really? Are they both friends to one another? Is he a family friend? Is he like a mentor figure to her, an uncle figure, or, and he hopes this is not the one, due to the fact that he just spent half an hour arguing against this earlier this morning- an actual, genuine father figure to the girl? 

He gets so far as saying, “She’s-“ before the aforementioned girl herself is pushing away from her from her friends to march the short distance in between her desk and the chalkboard near where both men are standing. Next thing they know, Maya is standing beside Shawn with a hand on his arm and a hard, almost protective look in her eyes. 

(He doesn’t realize until much later that, around the unfamiliar adults, most of which he has not spent more than two minutes with, he has the exact same look on his face. It’s just aimed at her, instead.)

“He’s Shawn,” she says, strong and certain. “And I’m Maya. He’s here for me, and I’m here for him. What else is there to know?” 

*****

Four. 

“Help.”

“What are you talking about?” Jonathan, on the other end of the phone, questions. “Is something wrong? What do you need help with?” His tone quickly switches from something casual to one of concern. He can very clearly hear the panic that Shawn is attempting to throttle down, and he’s not going to just let him try and repress it. Especially not when it’s the whole thing giving him any sort of hint to whatever the problem is. “What’s going-“

“I have a kid.” 

Well,  that’s  quite the non-sequitur. He sputters. “I’m sorry,  what?  Did you just say that you have a  child?  You sure didn’t have one last week! What the hell  happened?”  Before the younger man can try to say anything, Jonathan continues on. “Actually, no. Don’t. You don’t need to explain that part to me.”

“No. Not... no. Not like that.”

“No?” Jonathan asks, wearily. Shawn is usually one for words, and he’s hardly using any of them right about now. Something is seriously wrong. It’s seriously disconcerting. “Do I need to come down to your place?”

“Yes,” Shawn says. At least that’s something to work with. He nods, throwing a hand over his face while he tosses the other one lightly over his closed eyes- a nervous tick that he picked up from the man who is practically his father. Speaking of which- In the background, on the other end of the line, Shawn can hear a low, deep rumbling sound that indicates a vehicle getting ready to go. Jonathan’s motorcycle, probably. That somehow gives him the motivation to force a couple more desperately needed words out of his mouth. He wants to give out at least some semblance of an explanation, but it’s just... hard. “Not mine. It’s Maya.”

Well that just made this whole thing even more concerning than it was in the first place. If the situation wasn’t so confusing and apparently emotional, that would be almost impressive. “Why is Maya Hart at your apartment? Isn’t she usually at the Matthews’ place, or at her own on the rare times that she isn’t with them?”

“They can’t help.” And hey, there he goes! That’s a sentence. It’s small and blunt, but it’s a sentence indeed. It’s quite an improvement. It make comprehending things just a tad bit less impossible.

“Why would she go to you and not them?” Jonathan wonders out loud. “I mean, no offense. She just seems really close to them and Riley.”

“She is.” That’s a well known fact. Anybody with eyes or ears can tell that much. “I haven’t talked to Maya yet but... I have a really bad feeling about this.”

“Shawn... it’s raining outside.” Again, what a non sequitur. 

“Yes, it is?” The brown haired man, (the younger one, anyway,) is confused about why they’re talking about the weather instead of one Maya Hart. Priorities, people. “What does that have to do with-“

“Please don’t tell me that you’re sitting inside your nice, warm apartment while that little girl is sitting outside in the rain, waiting for you to answer the door, when she’s not sure that you’re even home.”

“OH SHIT.” Shawn  leaps  to his feet. The loud exclamation seems to actually help matters somewhat, though- Maya seems to realize that he’s home. She knocks on the front door. 

“Guess that’s your cue,” says Jonathan as he hears the knocking of wood. 

Shawn nods, despite the fact that the other man cannot actually see it. “I’ll go let her inside. Talk to you later.”

*****

“This is potentially the worst case of deja vu that I’m ever going to experience in my life. I hate it.”

That’s the very first thing that Jonathan hears as he enters his son’s little studio apartment. “I’m sorry, what?” He throws his jacket haphazardly onto a nearby kitchen chair as he wrestles his wet helmet off of his head. Once it’s no longer sticking his equally wet hair onto his head, he throws that onto the furniture, too. He starts looking around the small living room for Shawn, who had been the one talking to him just seconds before, but he ultimately finds no one. “Where even are you?”

“Kitchen,” comes a strangled sounding call.

It doesn’t take him very long after that to find Shawn, who’s seated at a kitchen table with his head bent down low as he silently reads from what is presumably a tablet. He’s sitting across from a short looking blonde who is very clearly trying her best to be casual and In Control during what could potentially be a bad situation. Her legs are crossed and her feet are kicked up onto a nearby wooden chair and her arms are crossed loosely across her chest, but it’s her eyes that give away how potentially big this is . Potentially,  Jonathan thinks,  But I honestly have no freaking idea what’s going on here. Nobody is letting me know anything.  “What’s this?” he asks teasingly as he spots a familiar old leather jacket trying to cover Maya, who’s dripping from the rain just as much as he is, if not more. He looks over at Shawn, then. “What, did you adopt? Find some reckless little girl and go from there? Lemme guess, you went following after my footsteps and all that?”

Shawn’s head shoots up. His wide eyes meet Maya’s own. He stares at her. She stares right back. 

(Jonathan’s getting the impression that his innocent little joke is somehow hitting a lot closer to home than he intended it to.)

She’s the one that breaks the accidental staring contest first- however, the only reason her red hot stare leaves the photojournalist’s is because she turns her head away so she can gawk over at the puzzled Jonathan, instead. 

(He’s torn between wanting to feel regret for even coming here in the first place, or just snapping at the both of them until someone decides that it’s about time to give him some semblance of an explanation. In the end, he doesn’t end up doing either one.)

“What?” questions the blonde. That one word comes out as choked sounding as the earlier “Kitchen!” did. “You think- do you actually think that he adopted me?” She rolls up the sleeves of her borrowed leather jacket, staring. “Why do you think that? And why are you even here? I only met you like, twice. I really don’t need some random know-it-all teacher pulling up here when Da- when Shawn and I are trying to come up with a game plan.” 

Dad. She was about to call him dad before she cut herself off and continued on with an honestly impressive amount of gracefulness. For a second or two, he considers calling her out on it, considers telling her just how horribly that fits into her whole ‘why would you have the audacity to say he adopted me’ but wisely decides not to. He does question her on the rest of her sentence, though. “Game plan for what?” 

He then, unfortunately, has the opportunity to watch as the girl clams up, rolls up her limbs like she’s a freaking yo-yo or something, and absolutely refuses to say anything else of any importance at all. Jonathan is dripping wet, annoyed, and about two minutes of this nonsense away from snapping at the (just barely) teenager girl in front of him. 

It doesn’t help matters much when she juts her chin up in the air, as stubborn as can be, as she says, “Why should I tell you anything?”

“Why  shouldn’t  you tell me?” He tries to counter. He’s pretty sure that it doesn’t work very well, but the girl squints at him, frowns, and promptly trades in her irritation at him for suspicion, instead. It’s probably not a huge upgrade, but at least it’s something. It’s almost progress. (Almost has to be at least a bit better than nothing at all, right?)

“Wait,” says the blonde. “How did you even know how to get here? The Matthews’ house, I can kind of get, but here? And why? How did you even get the address in the first place?”

“How much did you actually say about how you know me?” the question is not aimed at Maya.

“Not much, yet,” Shawn begrudgingly admits as he pulls some hair out of his eyes. Some habits never die. “I’ve been kind of busy lately.”

“Does she even know how we met?”

He frowns. “She knows that you used to take care of me. I probably forgot to tell her how long that lasted, though... and, y’know, that we’re still constantly in touch and all. And that I was invited to your wedding.”

“You were one of the groomsmen, you were a bit more than just allowed to be there,” the man corrects absently. “Maya,” Jonathan addresses the girl, who looks a tad bit less ready to eat them all for dinner, now. She nods in acknowledgment, silently showing that she’s paying attention right now. “How much do you know?”

“That’s really vague,” she remarks. “Depends on the topic.”

“About me and Shawn.”

“Again, that depends on the topic. Like, you two  separately,  or you two as in how you know each other  now,  or what?” Before either of the men can say anything, she continues on. “No, I’m kidding. Well, somewhat. I know that you two met because you,” she points at Jonathan, “Were his teacher. I know that you two used to live together for a while. Shawn mentioned something about adoption one day? But he never specified if that actually went through or not, so I’m not really sure.”

“It did,” the oldest of the small trio replies with a firm nod. “I still have my copy of the adoption certificate back at home...” he trails off.  Wow, this got off topic fast. And I still don’t even know anything.  He tries to wrangle the conversation to his advantage, then. He tries his best to get back on topic. “You can trust me, if that’s what you really want to know about. And if you don’t believe me, ask Shawn. Or ask any of the Matthews clan. They’ll tell you the same thing that I’m telling you right now.”

She seems to wilt at that. The thirteen-year old doesn’t reply to his statement at all, actually- she just looks across the table silently. When she receives a certain looking nod, she fiddles with her still oversized sleeves- and launches into a description of the day’s earlier events.

“I went to school with Riley like I always do. Afterwards, all of us- that’s her and I, then Farkle and Lucas- went to a little coffee shop that’s right next to my neighborhood. It was going really well and we were all having a lot of fun hanging out together until I remembered that I left my wallet at home, so I excused myself real quick to go and grab it. I come home...” she swallows, visibly nervous. Shawn puts a comforting hand on her shoulder, and it seems to steady her enough to continue, albeit in multiple jerky fits and starts. “I- I come home and-  shit.  I come home and nobody’s there, which usually isn’t that big of a deal. At first, I just assumed that my mom was at work like she always is. News flash: that very much isn’t the case this time. So, I was looking around for the typical Mom-working-late note- y’know, the ones that are all ‘hi honey, hope you have a good day, I’ll be at the diner until late tonight, go have dinner with Riley please xoxo.’  Anyway-“  for the second time, she cuts herself off. This time, though, it’s only for a second or two before she’s forging onward, and with no outside help. She still has the support, of course, but it’s not what pushes her forward. This time, it’s out of determination to finish what she’s started. “And I’m- I feel so  stupid.  I wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t see any of it ahead of time. The note said something along the lines of ‘I love you, sweetie. But you know that I can’t take care of you in the way that you deserve. I can’t take care of you in the way that you truly need.’ And I still don’t even know what the heck even that’s supposed to mean! Apparently she left me dinner money on top of it all, like enough to last me for quite a while, as if that’s supposed to make anything better. She claims that she absolutely has to go to LA and pursue her acting career in a more... full time way. In a full time way that’s without me. I’m just. I don’t get it. What did I do wrong?”

Jonathan can’t deny the fact that, despite the fact that he has little scraps of knowledge now, he’s not any more in the know than he was ten minutes ago. There’s something that Maya is skating around, something that she absolutely does not want to say, no matter what. Her eyes seem to be brimming up with tears at just the thought of it, whatever it is. He wants to believe that this is all about having to move to Los Angeles with her mom and therefore having to leave her friends, but somehow he can already see that that does not seem to be the case.

Just one look at Shawn confirms that. Where he’s halfway expecting to get a ‘why should I know?’ kind of shrug in return of his curious glance, he sees the complete opposite of that. He sees anger and pain and sadness and a dull, uneasy acceptance. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Shawn says sharply, suddenly. Maya leans back just a little, startled, and he instantly changes his tune. “Look,” he says, quieter, but no less firm. “This is all on her. You did nothing wrong. You’re a really good kid, you’re fun to be around, and you’re going to grow up to do amazing things. On top of that all, you’re sincere.”

“Sincere,” she echoes dully.

“Yes.” He points at her as if she’s already got the point, when really she’s just doubting him entirely. If he notices that, which he likely does, he does not seem to care. “Sincere. Within reasonable boundaries, you do what you want, you say what you want, and you act how you want. You don’t try to hide away. You’re always yourself, and that’s an incredible thing, Maya.”

Maya sniffles. For a few long, agonizing seconds, it feels like she is going to remain completely, totally radio silent. Even if that was the case, nobody would be relieved. 

(The two men can’t help but know that this is the calm before the storm.)

And sure enough...

“If I’m all of those great things that you say I am, then why did they leave me?”

Oh shit.

Jonathan is now starting to understand why he heard something about ‘the worst case of deja vu’ when he first arrived. He’s sure that it’s not just him that’s staring at the girl, gaping, without a clue about what to do... which is a problem all on its own. Why does he not know what to do? He’s been through this before! Well. Not exactly.

It was more like a third person experience.

In the end, he tries his best to answer her (possibly, but not likely,) rhetorical question. He’s not sure that he’s succeeded very well. It’s not like he did so well the first time around, in his personal opinion. Cory and the rest of the Matthew’s were always more emotionally available with stuff like heartbreaking personal tragedies. Why aren’t any of them here now? “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with you. Uh, if you can... please try to remember that this is in no way your fault.”

“Who’s freaking fault is it then?” Oh, would you look at that. They touched down on sadness for all of two seconds before saying  Sayonara, suckers!  with a hop, a skip, and a wave goodbye. Anger, at least, is a more familiar emotion. “If it’s not my fault, as you’re poorly trying to convince me, then who’s is it? It has to be somebodies! Someone has to take the blame! Is it their’s? My mom and my dad’s? I’m sick of being so angry all the time! I’ve already gone through this shit once, does it ever end?”

“Yes.” And there’s Shawn jumping back in just when Maya needs him most. He’s reliable like that. “It does. I know you aren’t going to believe me right now, because I know I wouldn’t when I was your age, but it does get better. I promise you that, okay? All of the constant pain, the sadness, the uncertainty. All of it. It becomes more bearable as time goes on, trust me. It just might take a while, is all.”

“Why would  you  know?” Maya is leaping to her feet, trying to rip off the jacket that’s still at least two or three sizes too big for her. She does not succeed in taking it off, though- her anger makes her sloppy, and her sloppiness leads to a lower success rate. So, it stays on. She’s all set on pacing the small living room, stomping and seething like it’s the only reasonable thing to do right now, (and for her, it probably is. Nobody will blame her for that one,) fast enough that an innocent bystander would assume she’s practicing for going on a walk or running a marathon or something else perfectly innocent and not terribly heartbreaking. “Why would you know anything about this? You’re clueless! This... this is  not  something that you’re just magically going to know alllll about.” 

Shawn, who seems to be honestly perplexed for the first time throughout this whole conversation, only blinks at her. 

Jonathan does a bit more than that. He ends up doing a accidental double take. “ What?”

To Maya’s credit, she almost immediately picks up on the fact that she could have possibly said something factually inaccurate here. She momentarily stops stomping, but she keeps moving back and forth fast enough to give someone anxiety. “What did I say?”

“No offense here kid, but you know absolutely  nothing  about Shawn’s past, do you?”

She squints. She sways a bit quicker. “Why does that matter now?”

“Because out of all the things you could come crawling to him for advice about, he’s going to know how to help you deal with this one. 

Realization seems to flash in her eyes, but it’s there one second and gone the next. In one ear and out the other, so to speak. It’s almost as if she’s trying to squash it down because it’s just not relevant enough to the topic at hand. Nobody calls her out on it. 

One thing is for sure, though- when she wants to listen, she  does  listen. Silently vowing to take the advice given to her, she turns around to face Shawn and asks, “ Can  you help me deal with this?”

“I can sure try,” he replies. He slings one arm over her shoulder. “I’m here for you, kid.”

Some of the fight- not all of it, of course, but that’s kind of a given- seems to drain out of her as she tugs the man closer to her. “You better be.” 

This sense of semi peace and tranquillity lasts about two minutes before she straightens up, curses, and flings herself toward her now ringing phone. 

“What is it?” questions Jonathan, who really hopes that another emergency is not headed any of their directions. 

“Probably Baby Cory,” remarks Shawn. It doesn’t take long to figure out that the nickname has recently been bestowed upon the one teenaged Matthews child. 

Maya puts a finger up to her mouth while mumbling at the two adults to keep quiet. Then, to their surprise, she presses a button on her phone and places her BFF on speakerphone. “Hey. Riles.”

“Where even are you?” is the first thing out of Riley’s mouth. “You’ve been gone for two hours. Does it really take  that  long to grab a wallet?” Her voice is frantic as she says, “My Dad and I were just about ready to send a search party out for you!”

“Don’t do that. It’s not necessary. I’m alive, okay?”

“Well, how were we supposed to know, Maya?You disappeared and hardly even said anything to me, or even gave me a real warning, before you left! You could have been dead in a ditch for all that we knew, geez! You could have at least picked up your phone and texted me!”

“Calm down! Just take a deep breath and  relax.”

The other girl huffs, gulps, and pointedly does not follow along to the well meaning instructions. 

Maya continues on speaking as if she did. “I’m okay- well, physically, at least, and as you can clearly hear, I’m not dead in a ditch.”

“YOU COULD BE A ZOMBIE,” someone loudly calls out from the background of the busy bakery/cafe that the small friendship group of Farkle, Riley, Maya, and Lucas frequents. It takes the blonde a second to realize that the person screeching like a velociraptor into the speaker phone is Farkle, who’s voice is high pitched worry. “AND IF YOU’RE NOT, GET BACK HERE  NOW.  DON’T EVEN TRY TO TELL ME THAT YOU DON’T HAVE THE MONEY, YOU JUST RAN TO GET YOUR WALLET, SUPPOSEDLY. EVEN IF YOU DIDN’T GET IT, I’LL SPOT YOU THE STUPID MONEY IF YOU COULD JUST PLEASE HURRY UP ALREADY. YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES.”

“Sorry about him,” says Lucas on the other end of the line as Riley’s phone is presumably passed onto him. He’s a lot calmer in comparison to any of his best friends, really. Knowing how prone to anger he used to be, this is kind of impressive, and almost soothing. At least nobody is screaming about the undead anymore. “But, hey. You okay? You’re safe? And hopefully not totally alone in the middle of New York right now?”

She doesn’t answer that- instead, Shawn does. She stays quiet in the background, silently relenting control of the situation over tothe sensible (at least at the moment) adult. It’s a sign of trust, whether or not he sees it that way. It is what it is. “Maya’s safe. No need to worry.”

Maya doesn’t need to see Lucas to know that the boy’s brow is furrowed, he’s blinking slowly, his eyes are open and his ears are peeled so to speak. He’s throughly focused on the conversation at hand. “Wait,” he says as he seems to pinpoint the other person’s voice. “You’re the Career Day dude, aren’t you?”

The Career Day Dude. What a description. (Shawn doesn’t refute the title, though, so there’s that.)

“Uh. Yeah, sure, why the heck not. That’s me,” he agrees. 

“UNCLE SHAWN? ARE YOU WITH MAYA?” Riley shout-screams with absolutely no chill at all. 

“Yes, I am.”

“WHY ARE YOU WITH HER? WHY DIDN’T SHE TELL ME? WHEN ARE YOU TWO MEETING UP WITH THE REST OF US?”

“Listen, kid,” he begins, deliberately trying to skate away from all the inquiries Riley has, even if it’s just for a few moments, “Are your parents with you right now?”

Despite the fact that she’s old enough and trusted enough that her parents allow her to do normal teenage things like running off to hang out with her friends, Riley somehow still ends up spending a lot of time with her parents at the same time, anyway. Usually it’s not even on purpose. They just naturally end up congregating at the same spot, anyway. 

“Yeah, they are,” she answers once she’s able to get a handle on her loud, worried yelling. Either the other kids get the memo, or the rest of the room is just quiet all on their own, because the brunette and the people around her are suddenly suspiciously quiet in comparison to her high volume of just a few seconds ago. “Why?”

“Well,” drawls Maya, looking and sounding a lot less laidback than her best friend is now trying to be. She elbows Shawn’s arm. He can’t quite tell if she meant it to be gentle or not, but it sure doesn’t feel like it is. That’s almost proven when she levels him with a heavy look that reminds him, accurately enough, of himself way back when everything was uncertain and he didn’t even know who’s house he would be staying at by the end of the night, if any. The observation draws him out of his own thoughts, and realization hits him so sharply that he has to resist the urge to slap his own face in exasperation. How did he not notice until now? 

This kid is in almost the  same exact situation he was.  He’s not so sure that just calling in the big guns, (The Matthews) is going to just stir up some sort of magic solution that can cure away all of their problems. Sure, they’re going to let Maya stay with them because they’re good like that, (and because  of course they would, he’s literally living proof of this-)  but that doesn’t mean that it would be the best thing for anyone, not really. Except maybe for Riley. She’d be absolutely ecstatic to have her best friend staying with her, of course. For a few seconds, this seems like a good idea. Maya might eventually be able to settle there. 

But that’s just the thing:

She shouldn’t have to  settle  or be forced into getting  used  to anything. The Matthews are good, nice people who only want to help the girl. Everybody knows that. Their way of living, the rules, the habits, the big group, the traditions, all of it. It’s not what the almost fourteen-year-old likes or is used to. Why go changing it around this late in life? 

Almost before he knows it, an idea- possibly a horrible, ill-advised one, one that could ultimately amount to nothing, although it is more likely to be life changing- hits him like a lightning bolt. It stings, it burns, and he can’t shake it away. 

It’s  terrifying.

“Oh no,” Jonathan is suddenly saying. “I know that look in your eye, Hunter. You’re up to something.” (Indeed, he is.) “What is it?”

Shawn eyes Maya; she eyes him. She raises an eyebrow at him. ‘Why are you acting so weird all of a sudden. You were so cool with me earlier’ the look seems to convey. ‘I probably won’t screw up your life too badly, just trust me on this ones’ is what his returning expression is trying to say. She motions back at him with one hand. ‘Go on,’ her gesture seems to say before she actually, verbally does. 

“Go on.”

“My parents are here,” Riley says, abruptly ending the moment before it can fully come to function. “Want me to pass the phone on to them, Uncle Shawn?”

“That’s probably a good idea,” he agrees, albeit reluctantly now that he’s been interrupted. 

So she does.

“What’s going on, Shawn?” Topanga asks, tone of voice happy and lighthearted. She must be having a fun time with the little teenybopper kid group that she’s quickly warmed up to. He almost hates to interrupt that. 

“I need you to meet me at your place.”

Something in his voice must give him away; Topanga’s relaxation seems to instantly give away into something more serious. In the background, Cory asks what’s going on. 

“It’s important,” is the only information Shawn gives out. Jonathan, who’s now almost fully aware of what’s going on, simply sighs. This conversation isn’t going to be fun for anybody, no matter what his kid has up his sleeve. 

“How time sensitive is this?” Topanga wonders worriedly. 

“Time sensitive enough that you don’t have time to take your kids home,” Jonathan informs her. She doesn’t correct him on the ‘your kids’ statement, when only one out of the overall four teenagers is biologically hers. (Well. Five, maybe, if you’re entering Smackle into that particular equation.)

To her credit, she barely even questions why the man who’s supposed to be on his way to work by now- or there already- is very much  not  teaching a bunch of high schoolers or doing something that will get him paid right about now. Mentally, she decides that his presence is only one piece of the current puzzle, and one that she can figure out later on. Out of all the urgent things going on at the moment, that is not one of them. “Okay. I have Lucas, Farkle, Auggie, Riley, Smackle, and Cory with me. Should we all just go straight back to mine and Cory’s apartment?”

Both Shawn and Jonathan do or say nothing more than just staring at Maya, waiting for her decision. This is her move; the two of them are just moral support. 

“Yeah,” she says, voice choked with... something.  Emotions.  Yuck. “That’ll be fine.”

“Good,” Topanga says now, in what most everyone in her close circle fondly, (and sometimes a bit anxiously,) refers to as her ‘lawyer shark’ voice. Stuff is about to go down, if it hasn’t already. “I’ll see you all soon.”

*****

Five. 

Maya ends up staying with the Matthews family for almost an entire month. In her personal opinion, she would enjoy her stay a whole lot more if a: Riley was around just a tad bit less, (she loves the clumsy kid, she swears she does, but sometimes one just needs a little bit of rest, relaxation, and  alone time without even smothered to death by her best friend,)  b: if she were here for something a bit more lighthearted than her mother racing off faster than a cheetah can run, and, finally, the slightly elusive letter c: if Shawn was around more. Or, you know, at all. 

He’s been off on some sort of assignment in Philadelphia, one that he, oddly enough, decided not to bring an over enthusiastic Cory along on. Before he left for that, he stopped to visit them all right around the same time that he netted off for Washington. Then, before even that, there was Hawaii. In comparison, the Philadelphia appearance isn’t really all that far away in comparison to all the trips that he’s been reluctantly making within the last few months. He’s scheduled to be away for at least one more week. 

At least he still calls and texts and video chats them all every single day, without fail. Sometimes he sends in postcards or mails in little trinkets or souvenirs along with them, too. Without even having to ask if Maya would perhaps want one, he sends in the most personalized ones to her that he possibly can. In reality, she does not actually have any use for them, but it’s the thought that counts. She appreciates it a lot, really. 

But, point of the matter: he’s been a really busy man lately, before the whole fiasco with her parents, even; so she’s bitter, sure, and she misses him, obviously, but she truthfully does not blame him one bit for going. 

So naturally, you can imagine her surprise when, on a downright mundane seeming day, Shawn Hunter materializes out of thin air. 

“CORY!” the man bellows as he flings the front door wide open. The poor hinges shriek as they fly at the sudden motion. He doesn’t notice it. He barely seems to register Maya sitting at the kitchen table, holding her spoon limply in one hand while throwing her bowl of cereal away from her with the other. As the man screams, she lunges up to grab at some paper towels. The loud, booming entrance is nice and all, but it startled the fourteen-year old so hard that she jumped and spilled half of her breakfast into her lap. “I HAVE SOME NEWS FOR YOU NOW, BUDDY.”

“He’s not here,” Maya informs him as she wipes off her lap with one hand and pulls the rest of her food back toward her with the other. Once her bowl is back to its rightful glory, she munches away at the still sort of crunchy mix of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and almond milk. Yum. She waves her right hand- the one that has a kitchen utensil in it, now- in a silent form of greeting. She doesn’t question why he’s here- or at least, not yet. All in due time.

Especially if that time is soon. 

Shawn, who’s been doing a quick sweep of the apartment in search for his best friend of who-even-knows-how-many-years, pauses. “Oh. I’ll just tell him later.”

“Yeah,” she drawls through a mouth full of cinnamon, “Or you could just tell me instead.”

“I could,” he agrees. Then, much to her confusion, he kicks his backpack off of his back, throws it onto the vacant couch, and throws his empty arms out wide. When all he gets is a loud crunch and blank stare in response, he huffs and stretches them out even further. He kind of reminds her of a really funny looking bird. If odd looking animals just naturally cruise around in old, worn out jackets with an incredibly contrasting brand new camera in hand. “Well, kid. Are you going to hug me now or what?” 

The answer to that one is apparently yes, judging by the way he completely abandons the very shiny looking camera and flies forward as he’s suddenly faced with an armful of curly blonde hair. 

“So,” Maya says as she peers up at him. “What’s the news?”

“It’s old school news, kinda. Nothing you’d be interested in. It’s about a girl that Cory and I used to know back in high school and the very early years of college.” 

“Old school. So, like, with the dinosaurs.”

“ No,”  he scoffs, playing a part of being thoroughly offended by the fourteen-year-old’s sheer  audacity.  “How  dare  you?” He oh-so dramatically places a hand over his chest- or, well, maybe he was going to try to, but the still-attached kid socks him in the arm just for the effort, just for the sheer thought of him thinking of dislodging her. Apparently he’s not allowed to even move an inch without her say so. (As he looks down at the kid that he refuses to admit feels like his own sometimes, he finds that he doesn’t really mind it all that much.) “You said Cory isn’t here, right?”

“Right.”

“Where is he? That man has no social life, I swear it.” It’s true. His social life back in the olden days, (simply classified as college, where Cory Matthews definitely did  not  peak, thank you very much,) the two of them were in a decent sized friend group not unlike Riley and Maya’s. There was Rachel, (who even knows where she ended up? Seriously, does the woman not know what Facebook is? Or, heck, even what a letter is?) Jack, who’s apparently a wannabe businessman now or something, Eric, who’s now a  mayor  of all things, a  good  one, (who also kind of verbally took down his ex best friend just before realizing that they were on opposing political sides, whoops? They worked it out in the end anyway, so no harm no foul,) Shawn and Cory, but they’ve already been mentioned, Topanga, who as aforementioned, is a killer shark... and that leaves them all with just the until now unthought of Angela.

Angela. Damn it. Right.

For a few seconds, the smothering that Shawn’s receiving distracts him from the news he had just recently received in Philadelphia about his former lover. He supposes he could just tell it to Maya, because it’s really not as big of a deal as his stupid brain is trying to make it out to be, but  still.  She’s not Cory. She wasn’t there for it all. She wasn’t even  alive,  so it’s not the same, really. 

But he still doesn’t even know where Cory is. That kind of puts a hold on the desperately needed ranting session.

“I believe you there,” Maya says. “I have to live with the guy... knowing what I know now, I’m getting the vibe that you were the cool one in high school.”

Somehow, he lets the ‘were’ part of that sentence slide, but that little girl is on thin ice. (Yeah, right. Who’s he trying to fool, here? Himself? Even that’s not working.) He tries to puff his chest out in a showy kind of way, but his new little attachment kind of complicates that motion, too. Oh well. So instead, he shrugs. “Yes, I was.”

“Well, that just means that we have another thing in common.” Maya, who’s not being enveloped like a blanket,  can  puff out her chest. So, looking not unlike a little puffer fish, she does so. Proudly. Without shame. “That doesn’t really surprise me. Oh, and to answer your question which I may have spaced until just now, Cory is out with Riley, Auggie, and Mrs. Matthews. They’re having some kind of “family only” movie outing, or whatever.” 

She specifically puts air quotes around the words “family only,” which only leaves Shawn with the impression that it’s not just biological Matthews members that are all stretched out on movie theater reclinable chairs somewhere in the city, but he doesn’t question it. He does question one thing, though- “Then why aren’t you there? Shouldn’t you be with them all right now?”

Maya looks away from him for the first time in the few minutes since he’s arrived. Not a great sign. “ Family only,”  she repeats bitterly as she puts both feet back on the ground again, no longer jumping on Shawn like a little baby koala. Not a great sign. “I’m just a little tag along that they found in the street one day. Some helpless little kid that needed a ‘home’ so they took me in. They’re good people poor that. They just don’t want me there, is all.” She shrugs, attempting to come off as nonchalant and unfeeling. It fails miserably. 

Somehow, he doubts a majority of what she just said, for more reasons than one. “It’s a Monday,” he says instead of reinforcing just how much that family loves her, and just how much she should know it. It would be futile anyway, because she’s already aware that Auggie, Riley, Cory, and Topanga care about her very much. If they didn’t care her about her, there’s a chance that she wouldn’t even be in their living room cuddling the life out of their uncle (in their words) and/or family best friend right about now. But still. When Maya does not seem to care in the slightest, and is still not looking at him head on, he switches topics. “Hey, wait a minute. Why aren’t any of you kids in school?”

“Spring Break just started yesterday. Everybody that I know of has the whole week off of school. I’m definitely not complaining about  that,  lemme tell you. I mean, the homework that Mr. Matthews is still giving out is kind of outrageous, and I can’t exactly avoid it. Anyway... not that I don’t want to see you, because I missed you and all,  clearly-“  she motions down at herself and her still entangled arms, then over at Shawn. “But why are you here? I thought you weren’t supposed to come back to New York for another few days.”

“I wasn’t,” he admits. “But, ah... about that. I got a little hung up on something back in Philly and decided it would be a smart idea to just abandon ship and come back here instead. Couldn’t focus on my work as much I needed to. Besides,” he grins down at her now, “I kind of missed you, kid.”

He’s not immediately sure if being honest about his emotions is the best way to go after he shows up out of nowhere almost a week early, but it turns out that little confession about his feelings was very much the right thing to do; Maya grins up at him, all open mouthed and teeth showing. Her smile stays still on her face as she points at him and says semi-accusingly, “You still haven’t told me why you’re back early. I’m not going to let you off the hook yet, either.”

“Fine,” Shawn can’t help but groan. He also can’t help but think back to that time not too long ago when he was first badgered into admitting his still lingering feelings for Angela, who he hasn’t seen or even really talked to in years. The most they ever communicate now a days is sending the obligatory happy birthday/merry Christmas/Happy New Year emails, and even those are few and far between.

Especially now.

“Do you have any plans right now?”

Maya squints. “No. Why?”

*****

“When you asked me if I had plans, I wasn’t expecting you to buy my entrance into the museum of my dreams.”

“This isn’t your first time coming here, and I’m certain that you’ve dreamt of better before,” Shawn remarks with a faint roll of his eyes. Maya tugs him off toward a certain painting that she has her eye glued on, and he follows behind her obediently.

“Not the point,” she says. “Stop avoiding your problems.” 

“Oh, please. I’m sure that there’s stuff you aren’t particularly excited to talk about, either.”

“You  were  excited, though,” she says, not buying anything he’s saying for even a second.Sure, maybe she’s not exactly accurate with her assessment, but at least she’s trying. “You were screaming for Mr. Matthews the very second that you reached his apartment.”

“I wasn’t excited.” Shawn refutes that statement. “I was pissed off.” Wait. Should he curse in front of kids? Maya is just barely fourteen years old Does she really count as a kid anymore? Should he really be spitting curses out in front of her like this? 

He almost worries about it, until he remembers that this is the kid who was yelling  fuck  and  shit  just a few weeks ago when her mom went MIA. If he didn’t care about her cursing, is she really going to care if he does it? He lets himself off the hook.

“ Why  were you pissed off? You might as well tell me, I’m not going to leave you alone about it.” 

He believes that. He believes that very much. He’s known her long enough to know how stubborn she can be, so he just takes her for her word and begins. “So, do you remember what I told you about Angela?”

“You don’t talk much about her, actually. Just said that she was your on-and-off girlfriend during high school and college. Mrs. Matthews said you fell in love when you went through her purse. I remember that part pretty well.” She sits down on a well polished, shiny looking bench, and waits until Shawn is sitting down beside her before continuing on. She angles her head at him so he’s in her peripheral vision a bit more as she says, “You don’t talk about her a lot. Did something happen? Did she leave you?”

That’s a blunt way to put it. But also- how does he deny that? “Yes. Twice.”  The first time was obvious,  he thinks.  She was physically distant, literally in another country, until she officially broke it off. Does getting married count as leaving me a second time, too? Or do I only count the physical distance here? “ She’s kind of what I was going to go yelling to Cory about earlier.”

Maya tilts her head even further to her right side. Her head is listing toward Shawn’s shoulder now. She’s scowling. “I hate when that happens. People shouldn’t just get to leave like that. It’s totally messed up.”

“I didn’t even tell you what happened yet.”

“That’s true, but you will. Either way,” she juts her chin out, determined as ever, “I don’t like her.”

He can’t help but point out, “You barely even know her first name! That’s the only thing that you even know about her! Why would you not-“

Maya doesn’t let him finish. “Because she left you! Do I really have anything else that I need to say? Any other reasonings to be had?” Her words come across defiantly. 

Shawn gapes at her, bewildered. He’s never seen a kid so instantly dislike a  grown woman  before even meeting her or, for crying out loud, at least knowing her last name first! But here’s Maya, looking just about ready to throw hands with someone that’s currently states away, that she has never talked to even once in her life. 

“Yeah, kinda. So, anyway...” he trails off. When he starts up again, he’s very deliberately keeping his tone of voice as light and conversational as it has been up until now. When Maya, for what has to be at  least  the third time in a row by now, only squints at him some more, he’s pretty sure he missed the mark. “So, take a wild guess at where I was before now.”

“Philadelphia,” she replies drily. “I already know this.  You know that I already know this.  You texted me a bunch of photos you took of there.” 

“I should have worded that a bit better,” he mutters. He then brings his volume back up to its previous level as he swings his focus, reluctantly, back to the current topic of conversation. “I was at a wedding.”

Maya blinks. She tightens her grip on the recently purchased bag of chips that she’s been holding for at least the last ten minutes. For a long moment, she says nothing as she silently connects the proffered dots; she just stares straight ahead of them at a beautiful painting that’s a loving, abstract mixture of ocean blues and forest greens and sunshine oranges, of lemon yellows and neon pinks. “She got married to another man,” she quickly concludes, glaring so hard that any passerby would assume she has a serious issue with the painting directly in her line of vision. “She left you in the dust way back when, ran off to who-knows-where, left you for another man, and  invited you to her wedding?”

Shawn nods, silently. She’s very correct. Hit the hammer right on the nail. Came in like a wrecking ball. Something like that, at least. 

He notices that her fist is clenching, and honestly, he’s touched. Sure, violence is supposed to be bad and all, and he should probably be a good father figure or role model or friend or whatever the heck he is and try to calm her down, but he doesn’t really have it in him to do so. Besides, excusing the artsy museum setting, this is pretty much exactly what he was planning on doing this morning anyway. (Excluding being in New York, and his current company.) So, whatever works. 

“ Why,”  Maya tries to question in a dull, low sort of a tone, but it comes out more as one growled out syllable instead. “ Why  did she invite you to her wedding? She’s gotta know that you’re still in love with her! She has to know that’s gotta hurt!”

“I never said that.” Shawn doesn’t deny it, either. He doesn’t say much at all, truthfully. Just lets the fourteen-year-old come to her own conclusions. 

Maya seems to take that as proof to her claim. “Like I said- she has to know. Unless she’s a complete idiot, but I don’t think that you’d fall head over heels for someone with zero braincells, so I’m going to be all nice and polite right now and just assume that she has some. Why did she invite you if she knows that it’s going to absolutely suck for you?”

Shawn notices how spitting mad the blonde is on his behalf, and once again, he likes how obvious it is that she cares for him, and he likes how she’s letting him in enough that she isn’t even trying to hide it. One part of his mind is yelling at him, sounding off distant bells that haven’t gone off in years. They’re ringing and singing and going,  You love this little girl like a daughter. It just took you two going through something together, (and not even this particular something. The whole Katy-and-LA kind of something,) to realize that.  The bigger part of his brain, the one more fueled by his emotions, is erupting. It’s going,  You and Angela were doomed from the start. Neither of you were certain enough about one another to stay together, and you weren’t enough for her to stay. For her to not flee to Europe and never come back. For her to not ignore your entire existence for years on end until she just up and decided that you were the only person capable enough to shoot her wedding photos. Here comes the bride, all dressed in white to go ahead and taunt me. 

It’s the second part of these dinging alarms that’s controlling his thoughts right about now, and he doesn’t care one bit. Maya, beside him, is clearly just as annoyed as he is, if not more. He’s definitely not alone in that feeling, then. 

“She hired me to take her wedding photos.”

Maya drops her snacks entirely. Whirling around to face him, (due to the lack of distance between them, because they are sitting on the same bench and all, this doesn’t come across as fiery and dramatic as she wants it to, but oh well,) she hisses:

“She broke your heart and hired you to  see her get married? Is she out of her mind?”

No. I can’t be mad at her over this,  a far off, absent part of his mind whispers at him. He pushes it away, though, because he  deserves  to be angry, dang it. Not even just about the Angela getting married thing. Not even just about the wedding photos thing. He just honestly needs to get mad, he needs to feel his emotions instead of shoving them away. In the more recent years of watching Maya and Riley from afar off, he’s learned a lot. And he likes to think that the two girls have learned something from him as well, something that isn’t just his fiery temper and/or his old fashion sense, which was honestly pretty darn good. 

“I didn’t even know that I was going to be shooting for her,” he admits bitterly. He glares down at the soda that’s in his hands. It seems to take some effort to not try and crumple the thing. “ Nobody told me.  Her first name rang a bell, of course, but I didn’t realize what was going on until I was already there and it was too late to just turn back.”

“How did you not notice?”

“Apparently, and I didn’t get this from her, by the way, so I don’t even know how accurate this is- apparently her and her husband went ahead and got married in Vegas before they actually agreed with one another to have a ceremony. They weren’t even really engaged by that point.”

“What,” scoffs Maya. “Did they just do one of those cheeky Elvis weddings that possibly drunk people always  think  are fake but actually  aren’t ?”

Shawn blinks. “Yes.” 

“Oh. I was just kidding. Wait, so, since they were already married, did she take her husband’s last name, or...?”

“Yeah,” he confirms. “Which is how I ended up with no idea about who I was working for.” 

“Wow,” says Maya. “What a bitch.”

The more paternal part of his brain slightly feels the need to scold her for her language, now, but he isn’t sure if he’s the right person to do it. He’s not exactly in charge of her or anything. In the end, all he says is her name and she stops, although she is not very repentant.

Shawn would really like to drag this conversation away from what a mess his life can be. So, he attempts to do so. “Anyway, that’s over with now. How is it living with the Matthews?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“Which Matthews you’re talking about, of course.”

“Alright. Cory.”

Maya pauses before making a face and a so-so motion with one of her hands. She doesn’t even have to say a word for the emotion to be perfectly conveyed. 

“Yeah,” Shawn says with a chuckle in his voice. “That sounds about right.”

“They’re so strict. Logically, I know that they aren’t that bad. Like, I’ve seen and heard of worse. A part of that ‘worse’ just recently walked out on me, which obviously you know, but anyway... living with them all is probably not as bad as I’m making it come across as. I’m just... not used to it, is all All the attention. All the rules. I feel trapped with it, almost.” Her last words come out quietly, spoken with her head low to the ground, but he’s able to hear her just the same. 

And he can’t keep the blasted idea out of his head, the ones he’s not been able to avoid for weeks. 

“I have a suggestion. It’s not the greatest suggestion, but it’s something. And maybe it’ll end up working out for the best for you. If it doesn’t, then at least I can say that I tried to do something.”

“What is it?” asks Maya, her interest piqued.

Shawn takes a deep inhale and a deeper exhale. 

“Move in with me.”

*****

“You want to do WHAT?”

Three hours later, Shawn and Maya are standing in front of the whole miniature Matthews clan plus Jonathan, who earlier stumbled upon the group on a casual day out- all in all, Jonathan, Cory, Topanga, Riley, Auggie, Shawn, and Maya are all congregating back at the apartment, acting like it’s a prime hang out spot. It’s Cory, though, that’s yelling. Just like the good ol’ days. 

“He wants me to live with him,” says Maya. “Keep up.”

“Wha- I’m just- since  when?”  Cory demands to know as he gawks at them both in total shock. Of anything he was expecting to hear when the two told him an hour ago that they had an announcement to make, this sure as heck was not it. “And  why?  Maya’s doing just fine right where she is!”

“I appreciate that you might want me here-“

“I need you here, Peaches!” Riley, who isn’t even supposed to be home yet, (she texted Maya earlier to invite her out to lunch with herself, Lucas, and Farkle, most of which are not even present,) exclaims. She’s being just a tad bit less dramatic than her dad is being. Which is to say, there’s not much of a difference. She’s just like a little mini Cory in more ways than one. 

Topanga, on the other hand, is mellow. Mellow, but grinning. Pleased. Her hands are on her hips, and if she wasn’t positively brimming with pride like she currently is, there would probably be a much higher intimidation factor here. (That probably helps her win her cases.) “Shawn,” she says as her eyes flutter at the small space in between Shawn and Maya. She notices that they seem quite comfortable around each other now, that they seem to be working on their own form of silent communication- eyes shut, heads shaking, furrowed brows, shrugs, frowns, beaming smiles, lips tilted upward (or downward, depending on the situation and the emotions being felt.) “I’m sure that you’re aware that this isn’t going to just be a one and done thing when she moves in with you, right? This is a big commitment. You’re going to be raising somebody.” 

)Neither of them state how they feel about that particular opinion, but nothing stops them from thinking it. Maya is fourteen-years-old and has been generally self sufficient for a lot of those years. In a few years she’ll be done with high school and off to college. It’s really not very long to them, all things considered.)

In the end, this is how they react: 

Shawn shrugs. So does Maya. 

Then they say, in accidental but complete, utter unison:

“It’s just temporary.”

(Jonathan, mostly hidden away and silent until just now, scoffs  loudly.  When all heads momentarily turn to him, all he does is cackle and shake his head at the  audacity.)

“Temporary,” the man echoes, looking at his son and (probably) future granddaughter as if they’ve both just lost their minds or ran around the room screaming something about how aliens are coming. He looks Shawn right in the eye while saying pointedly, “ Temporary.  Say, Hunter, just how temporary was the whole living situation with you and I, huh?”

“Actually, I want to know about that,” Auggie tries to say, but the six-year-old’s sentence is, alas, terminated by his now upset sister. He turns to open his mouth and scold her for cutting him off, but her unusually hard features cause him to freeze in place instead.

She must be  really  concerned over Maya if she’s willing to abandon her happy-go-lucky mood. It’s not just that, though- she’s about two seconds away from downright  glaring  at their uncle. 

“Why take her in at all if it’s just going to be short-term? What good does that do  anyone?  Maya deserves better than just some... halfhearted attempt at helping out, especially if you’re only doing this out of some misplaced feeling of obligation!”

“Wow,” Shawn says. Oddly enough, he’s almost impressed. “Never seen you do that before.” Never seen her yell at him like that before, even if it is about her best friend. He’s not even mad. “Okay, lets get this whole thing straight and settled right now, while everyone is paying attention. Ready now? Here it is: I am  not  planning on this being short-term, at least not in the way you’re thinking.” He shifts his gaze away from her and over to the girl standing beside him as he continues. “Maya can stay with me as long as she wants or needs to. It’s perfectly alright with me.” He shoots Riley a glance as he finishes his sentence up with, “And I can definitely promise you that this is not halfhearted.”

“It’s not,” Cory agrees. He sounds a lot calmer now. Less likely to bite anyone’s heads off. It’s an improvement. “Trust me, he’s not. Taking somebody in and caring for them as your own is a big deal. He wouldn’t offer that to anyone if he didn’t mean it.”

“So, is this settled now?” an honestly bored sounding Maya wants to know. Her arms are crossed and an eyebrow on her face is raised. She points in between her and Shawn, then in between herself and a slightly less huffy Riley. “Can I leave? I kind of have an apartment to clear out, if they haven’t thrown all my stuff out by now.”

Shawn frowns. “Why would they throw all of your stuff out?”

“Duh,” she scoffs. “The landlords evicted me weeks ago.”

*****

+1.

“So, is this just an innocent mix up, or is this a care of one Cory Matthews being the most stupid that he can possibly be? What an extraordinaire.”

“Shut up,” Is Cory’s sullen response to Shawn’s annoyed sounding question. “It’s not my fault, okay?”

“Honey,” calls out Topanga, who is standing next to her husband. She’s also handing out popsicles to the group of kids that are currently scrambled around their apartment’s living room. “You kind of are being stupid.”

“I’m not doing anything!” the man protests. 

“That’s kind of the  problem,”  Shawn cuts in, scowling. His arms are crossed and he even goes so far as to shake his head at the offered frozen treat that are being handed his way. “Katy calls you to ask about her daughter’s middle school graduation and you just leave her on read for weeks while you conveniently  forget to tell anybody?  Then you act soooo surprised when we aren’t exactly happy with you about not telling us anything. What am I going to tell Maya if she notices that her mother is trying to get in contact with her? What am I supposed to say if Katy tries to talk to her? Am I just-“

“Okay, this has got to stop.” Topanga shakes her head at her over worried friend. “You’re going to worry yourself sick over this, okay? I’m not happy about this either, but you don’t need to drive yourself crazy over it.”

“Babe, I’m already there.”

She rolls her eyes. Cory smacks him up upside the head with a rolled up, previously abandoned coloring book page. It’s most likely one of Auggie’s, not that the child is very concerned about it.

“Who all’s coming to this graduation thing tonight, anyway?”

“Well.” Cory fiddles with his hands and looks away from his friend and his wife. With all of the experience that the two of them have, they’re both aware that a Cory who’s twiddling his thumbs and refusing to look either one of them in the eye generally just create chaos. “About that.”

“Cory,” says Shawn, the second he notices the gleam in his best friend’s eye that practically screams no good. “Cory. I know that face. I’ve helped you wreck havoc with that face. How did you screw up, how badly are we going to be paying for it in the future, and how long do we have until everything becomes a ginormous mess?”

“...Um. Do you really want to know the answer to those questions?”

“I think I  need  to know the answers to those questions.”

“Don’t kill me,” Cory pleads with clasped hands.

Shawn squints at his best friend, trying to determine if the other man is just playing around like usual or if whatever’s going on is actually a legitimate concern. 

“I might have accidentally invited somebody that you  really  don’t want to see.”

He frowns. Well, isn’t that cryptic? That could be quite a few people. He picks up a haphazardly placed cap, wrings it around in his hands nervously, (the green cap barely even crinkles- it’s apparently made of some decently sturdy stuff. It should be, anyway, given how much he had to fork over for this and the shining robes that accompany it. Maya, in the background, is scowling at the clothing, clearly not pleased at having to wear it soon. She wants to graduate and get her diploma, of course, but there’s no way that she wants to sit in some hot, stuffy robes for several hours, just waiting to get a little piece of paper. All of the adults in the room know her pain well,) and he tosses the hat up and down in the air, catching it each time it flies up toward the ceiling and back down again. “Cory... what did you do?”

“A mistake. A mistake is what I did. A big one.”

“Aw, honey,” says Topanga as she pats her husband on the arm. “We all make mistakes. You’ve made some pretty stupid ones before that are pretty impossible to top, so I’m sure that whatever this one is will only need just a quick fix.”

Cory promptly ruins all of that new found positivity by going, 

“I accidentally invited Angela.”

Shawn pauses. He blinks. 

“WHAT?”

Cory doesn’t look the slightest bit surprised by the outburst. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad is this?” 

Shawn looks the other man right in the eyes. “Seventy-two. But not fully for the reasons that I know you’re thinking of.”

“Then what-“

“HECK YES!” Maya departs from her little gaggle of friends, side-sweeps the couch, snatches her cap from her father figure’s hands, and butts her way into the conversation with all the subtly and grace of a bull in a china shop. “I want to meet Angela!”

“I do too!” Riley calls out, but she doesn’t even know what her best friend is talking about. All she heard was the name at the end of her sentence and decided to jump on the bandwagon of sorts. 

“That’s cute, Riles. Let the grown ups talk.”

“You’re only a few months older than me, could you just give it a break already-“

“Anyway!” Maya swivels around to face Shawn, who’s been watching all the commotion around him in silence. “She’s coming to my graduation, right? Probably so she can meet Riley for the first time? I’m assuming that she has no idea who I even am.”

“She knows who you are,” says Cory, confused. “Vaguely. Her and I and her and Topanga have been sending emails back and forth for years now.”

The girl frowns, as if this is going against whatever evil plan she’s mentally hatching. “How much does she know?”

“Not that much, I promise. I didn’t know what you’d be okay with me saying, and I wasn’t sure how to bring it up, so she doesn’t know anything that’s actually personal.”

“Good.” She nods. Then, “Does she know about me living with Shawn now?”

Nobody questions why she wants to know that one thing in particular, but they all shoot each other confused looks. The adults in particular do so, seeing as they’re more involved than the kids in the background are. 

“Last I knew, she was overseas working and didn’t exactly have a lot of cell phone reception. Plus, you two are a more recent addition and all, so I haven’t had the time to tell her.”

Maya’s frown fades away entirely into a more familiar smirking, scheming grin. “Good,” she says, looking just seconds away from rubbing her hands together and fill out cackling like a cartoon villain. “So, just to be perfectly clear here, I’ve been living with him,” she juts a finger back at the silent, fuming man beside her, “And despite the fact that we’ve been roommates of sorts for, what, almost three months now, she’s completely clueless?”

Cory cautiously nods. The cartoon esque look the blonde is wearing only enhances further. (He has the feeling that he shouldn’t have answered any of her questions, but it’s too late for that now.)

“What are you planning?” Shawn questions her with all the enthusiasm of a dead man. “And do I have to stop it?”

“That’s kind of how this whole schtick we’re stuck with goes, but I’m certainly not going to complain if you just didn’t stop me this time around. You could turn a blind eye on me for a few hours.”

“You know I can’t just let you do whatever you want.”

“You usually do,” she counters, arms crossed.

“That’s because most of the time, the worst thing you ever want to do is go out with Riley two hours past her curfew and ten minutes past yours.”

“And you let me go, too,” she says proudly, as if this is a huge accomplishment that she is likely to never forget. Who knows, maybe it is?

“That’s probably because I told Shawn that I was okay with letting Riley out that late, and we both knew exactly where you two kids were at the entire time,” Topanga informs her amusedly. “You weren’t exactly breaking any rules there.”

“Oh,” she frowns. Her shoulders slump a bit. “I thought I was being bad.”

“You thought wrong. Sorry. Try harder next time?”

“I can’t. I’ve tried,” she grumps. “Your daughter refuses to do anything that could get you mad at her. How dare you raise her well!”

“Oh yes,” the older blonde drawls, smiling. “What a mistake. How rude of me.”

“What are you plotting, Maya?” Riley, after watching this exchange, demands to know.

“Oh nothing, nothing,” says the lying liar who lies. 

“You concern me sometimes.”

“And me,” Shawn agrees. “Look, kid, just... leave it alone, alright? It’s not your battle to fight.”

“And you shouldn’t have to deal with her alone,” Maya retorts bitterly. 

“I’m not dealing with anything alone,” he says, which is probably far from the truth. “You don’t need to worry about it.”

“I’m going to worry about it.”

“Don’t. Please,” he sighs. “Just enjoy your day. Summer’s almost here. You just have one last day before you’re done for three whole months. Relax!”

She pauses. Then, way too quickly, she relents. “Alright. I won’t do anything.”

Shawn nods and heads away. Cory scrambles around after him. 

“You weren’t telling the truth, were you?” asks Zay almost the second that the adults are out of earshot. 

“Not even a little bit.”

*****

“I THOUGHT YOU SAID THAT YOU WEREN’T GOING TO DO ANYTHING!” 

“WELL, I LIED!” yells Maya. She yanks her cap onto her head, huffing. A couple blonde strands of hair fall from her head and onto her face, getting into her eyes. She only huffs harder as she tries to swipe them out of her way and out of her direct line of vision. 

“I CAN SEE THAT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH,” Shawn, who was just forced to witness a fourteen-year-old girl waltz up to his ex-girlfriend without a single care in the world, smiling innocently as she went on to describe how  amazing  Shawn, Cory, and Topanga’s lives are now that it’s only those three sticking together, yells. “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”

“SHE WASN’T,” Riley accuses as she passes by in a flurry of green robes, brown hair, and a sparkly dress. “Hey, do either of you have some eyeshadow?”

“Since when do you wear eyeshadow?” Smackle wonders. She searches for her bag despite that, but she comes up empty. 

Maya hands over a pallette silently; Zay, who shouldn’t even be back here helping the girls get ready in the first place, does so as well. 

“What?” he questions defensively when the three teenage girls look his way, clearly curious. “I know things.”

“Back to this,” Shawn cuts back in, still irritated. “Is indirectly telling Angela that all of us are happy without her all you’re going to say, or do I have to worry about you causing a commotion at your own graduation? Starting a fight? Getting into a screaming match? What do I have to be looking out for, here?”

“Nothing,”  huffs the blonde unconvincingly. She crosses her arms even tighter across her chest. Riley, clearly not caring about this argument very much, tosses a makeup brush at her. It clatters onto the floor uselessly when nobody moves forward to try and catch it. “You’re just not getting it.”

“What is there to get? You’re upset about something that has absolutely nothing to do with you, Maya.”

“But it has everything to do with  you!”

“Exactly! Which means that you shouldn’t be getting involved!”

She uncrosses her arms just long enough to bend down, pick up the brush, throw it at Smackle, and start fishing around for some hair-ties. 

“Ponytail?” questions Zay, who’s standing beside a table full of hair products, cell phones, purses, and various other conveniently placed objects.

“Yes.”

He tosses her an almost empty pack of hair ties and plain colored scrunchies. “Are you just pulling it up, or are you actually doing something to it for once?”

“I’m making her wrangle her hair tonight,” says Riley. “Even if I’m not actually the one to do it...” she trails off, idea in mind and hairspray can in hand. “I have an idea. Uncle Shawn?”

“No,” he says without any hesitation. He doesn’t even look in her direction. 

“Why don’t you just do her hair?” she continues on as if he hadn’t said anything at all.

“No,” he repeats. He takes the hairspray away from the brunette but does nothing with it; instead, he refocuses his attention back on the argument. “Maya, I know that you might possibly be worried about me right now, but it’s just Angela. It’s not like I’m dealing with some kind of monster here. I’ve got this, okay? We’ll talk a bit, watch you walk down an aisle, she’ll stick around long enough to get some pictures taken with Riley, Cory, Topanga, and I, you’ll go out with your friends, and we’ll all call it a night. Okay? No harm, no foul.”

“All the harm, much foul!” she quickly retorts. “She tricked you into photographing her wedding! I’m not just going to lay here and take it!”

“Don’t get involved.”

“I’m already involved.”

“Don’t get  more  involved,” he corrects. “Why are you so concerned about this?”

“Because it’s important to you. Because she’s important to you. I need to be able to defend you.”

Shawn seems to soften a bit at that, but not much. “Kid, you’re missing the point. You don’t have to fight for my honor, or whatever it is that you’re aiming to do. I’m supposed to take care of  you , remember? I’m your guardian, not the other way around.”

“But why can’t it be the other way around?” Maya questions as she kicks her feet and grabs her gown. 

“That’s not how it works.”

“Why can’t it be? Don’t you need somebody, too?”

He pauses at that. He doesn’t have a clear reason to refute that one; he can try and deny it, he can say that he doesn’t need anybody and that he never has, but that’s never really gotten him all that far before. Why would it do so now?

“Of course I do,” he finally admits. “Doesn’t everybody?”

“Yes. And if you’re going to be that person for me-“

“Isn’t Riley that person? Someone that you need and trust, that you can’t deal without?”

“She is, but she’s not what I’m talking about.”

Shawn frowns. He’s not sure if he knows where this is going anymore. “Then what do you mean?”

She finishes shoving into her new looking, ill fitting robe. Each sleeve is so large that they look like they could qualify as bat wings. There’s so much room left over in them that Maya has to hike them up arms just so her hands will peek out a bit better. “I mean,” she begins hesitantly, slowly, as if unsure if what she has to say next will be received well, “I think I need a parent.” 

“Do you mean me?” he can’t help but ask. What if he’s wrong? He doesn’t just want to assume things...

Maya lifts her head up, strong and sure, as she stares him right in the eye.

Right. That’s pretty much confirmed now, then. 

He opens his mouth to respond, not that he actually knows what to say...

“Miss Hart! Are you almost ready?”

...He’s cut off before he can even begin to figure out what comes next. 

“I’m almost ready, Mrs. Kosaal,” Maya confirms, but her eyes don’t leave Shawn’s. Still at a loss, he only blinks wearily back at her.

“Well,” she says once the teacher leaves. She spins around and strikes a pose. “What do you think?” She motions upward at her tassel, which is now hanging around right in front of her eye. “This thing is annoying, but it’s okay.”

“You look great,” he says honestly. (If that’s fatherly pride brimming in his eyes- which it probably is- he ignores it. Maya, who’s grinning now, clearly does not.) “Official. Ready to graduate.”

“High school here I come,” she agrees. “Can’t believe I made it.”

“I can.”

She blinks, as if not expecting that sort of response. “What?”

“I can believe it. You’re smart.”

“What?” she shakes her head. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” he argues. “You just don’t show it. That doesn’t dim you down any.”

“I-“

“Is Riley in here?” Mrs Kosaal wonders, accidentally ruining the moment yet again. Both Hart and Hunter point over at the rapidly moving brunette, who’s not even trying to listen in on their conversation anymore.

“I don’t have a hair curler!” she’s telling her friends, or at least all of them except for Zay and Lucas, one of which was in danger of getting in trouble for being back with the girls. The other one of them was never back with them in the first place. “Do any of you have one? Maya! You still need to do your hair!”

“You’re supposed to do it for me, Peaches. You’ve been planning on it for weeks.”

“We need all of the Honors students to get out of the bathrooms, cafeteria, and outdoor areas as soon as possible,” the still lingering teacher says. “We need them all in the gymnasium. The girls are going first. Is Isadora back here?”

Smackle startles, almost tosses a textbook at a tall redhead’s face, picks it up again, and begins to collect her things. “Yes, I’m here!” She quickly snatches the hairspray out of Shawn’s hand, throws the cap out of her way, squirts her hair with it, then tosses the bottle onto the nearby table. “Do I look adequate enough for the function tonight? Maya, Riley, does this work? Do I look okay?”

Maya, who’s physically closer to her than Riley is, gives the other girl a quick once over before thumbs upping her approval. “Very green. Good job.”

“I’m supposed to be wearing green. The color choice for our graduation robes is school mandated,” Smackle frowns. “Why are you telling me good job when it wasn’t even my decision to wear this in the first place?”

“Never mind then. You look just fine.”

The brunette nods and shoots her friend an awkward looking thumbs up in return before she disappears with Maya’s art teacher. 

“My turn, I guess,” the blonde says, turning to face Shawn again. She raises an eyebrow at him when he just stands there, looking clueless. “My hair,” she points out. Literally points out. “Like Riley was saying. She doesn’t have the time to do it anymore.”

“You want me to do your hair?” he checks.

“Sure,” she shrugs. “It’s just you squirting some hair products at me and hoping you don’t get it all in my eye instead. It’s not that big of a deal. You can’t be  that  bad at it.”

“If you say so. I’ve managed to help mess up Cory’s hair when we were kids.”

“Yeah?” she questions with a quirk of her lip. She looks around, pulls out a little plastic pink chair, and sits down on it. Behind her, Shawn picks up the hairspray for what has to be the third time today at least. This time, though, he actually uses the stuff. “How’d you mess it up?”

Sweet, sweet progress. Oh, how they’ve missed you. 

“I think he was attempting to dye his hair or something like that. I honestly don’t remember it very well, but I’m has nothing to do with this stuff.” He shakes the bottle he’s holding for reference. “So you don’t have to worry about that.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

“What are you worried about, then?”

“Nothing. Why would you imply that?” Her tense, proper posture gives her away. 

“Maya.”

“Fine. Is it weird that I’m kind of... uncertain about graduation?”

“Why do you mean?”

“What happens next?” she asks.

“What do you mean?” Shawn repeats. 

“Look. I’ve been living with you for almost three months now, and it’s been great.”

He stares at Maya. Where is this even going? “Are you breaking up with my apartment building?”

“No,” she scoffs. “But I do want to know how long this will be lasting.”

“How long what will be lasting? You staying with me?”

“Yes. After all... my mom’s been trying to get in contact with me.”

Shawn tries his best not to freeze in place. He doesn’t stop himself from wondering how on Earth Maya already knows that, when he knows for a fact that nobody’s told her about it. 

“How did you know?”

She shoots a look at him, distinctly unimpressed. “She’s my mother, you idiot. She has my phone number.”

“Right. I... didn’t think of that,” he admits. “Anyway. I think your hair is done. And I think I should go out there and face the music.”

“The music,” she repeats. “You mean Angela?”

Shawn nods. “Well. I have to go and talk to Jack, too. Cory really invited everybody he could possibly think of, after all, because he’s so proud of you and Riley. But, yeah. Angela too.”

Maya stands up and pushes the chair she was sitting on away from her. “I’m coming with you.”

He pushes her back down again. She pouts. “No, you’re not. You have a ceremony to get to.”

“It hasn’t even started yet!”

“In the last few minutes, the whole room has cleared out entirely. Your teacher interrupted us twice. It won’t take long before someone comes to collect you, too.”

It’s true. They’re the only two left in there. 

“But-“ she tries to protest once more. 

“No. You need to go out there and graduate. I’ll be here watching out for you the entire time. You have nothing to be worried about.”

The two of them stand up once more to face each other.

Maya wraps Shawn up in a hug. “Thanks,” she tries to say, but it ends up muffled into his shoulder. 

“Thanks?” he echoes, unsure what he’s being thanked for. In his eyes, he hasn’t done anything at all. “For what? Saying I’ll be watching you?”

“Yeah. I have a feeling that you didn’t mean just when I’m on stage, after all.”

“You’re right. Hey,” he says, pushing Maya’s face back just enough to where he can actually see it. He must be ready to say something serious. “I’m here for you always.”

“Always? Even when we aren’t living together anymore?”

Ah.  “Is that what you’ve been thinking about today?”

“It is.”

“I’m going to be here for you no matter what. That’s a promise, and I don’t break my promises.”

Maya meets his eyes, looking just as serious and sincere as he is. “I promise to be here for you no matter what, too.”

Shawn chuckles as he pulls the teen closer to him again. “Good. And, hey, for what it’s worth, these three months have been really good. Some of the best that I’ve had before, honestly. I’m looking forward to more of them.”

Maya grins. “So, that means I am staying for a while.”

“As long as you want.”

“At least over the summer,” she says. “No offense to the Matthews or anything, but living with you just feels more right.”

“Oh believe me, I get that.”

Maya nods and hums. In the distant background, the two of them can hear a bunch of chattering teenagers as they all get pulled out of almost every room that the school has to offer. Riley is chattering on and on about something or other, but the main topic is probably about how excited she is. A few teachers are talking about taking a quick head count before they all begin lining up.

“Guess that’s your cue,” Shawn says somewhat disappointedly. For all that he’s telling her to go, it’s kind of nice, having a peaceful moment like this. Just the two of them. He hugs her a bit tighter before fully letting her go. “Love you.”

He freezes. He had  not  meant to say that out loud. At least, not yet. 

“Uh. I’m-“

“No!” shouts the blonde, effectively cutting him off. “Don’t apologize! Did you mean it?”

Treading carefully, he admits to the truth. He feels that it’ll do him better than lying will. “Um. Yes. Yes, I did.”

Maya nods, satisfied. Shawn does, too. He can’t deny that that went just about as well as he thinks it could have possibly gone.

That is, until he hears what the fourteen-year-old has to say next.

She separates from him entirely, tugs her cap on just a bit tighter, gets all of her things together, and heads for the closed door. She opens it up and basks in the golden sunlight and the warm June weather. She has one foot at the door when she stops moving, and she doesn’t look behind her when she says-

“I love you, Dad.”

The end.

**Author's Note:**

> once again this took me over a month to do


End file.
